Last week, while Verona was dealing with flooding caused by Hurrican Ida, a 1999 graduate of Verona High School was grappling with a different aspect of the storm: an EF-3 category tornado.
Michael DeGrande lives now in Mullica Hill, a south Jersey town in in Gloucester County, where winds up to 150 miles per hour on September 1 destroyed several homes and damaged many others, as well as the local dairy farm. An EF-3 storm is several orders of magnitude more powerful than the EF-0 storm that passed through Verona on July 30, severely damaging one home near Verona Park.
DeGrande was home at the time, along with his wife Dana and their daughter Nina. They were able to take cover in the basement and were not injured, but his sister, Laura DeGrande Erb, says their home is in shambles and their cars are unusable.
So Laura DeGrande Erb, VHS ’94, has started a GoFundMe for her brother and his family. You can find it here.
