Ellis Boulevard home folded 'like a deck of cards’

LuAnne Reifschneider stood in a neighbor's driveway and pointed to a section of floor hanging from a cluster of debris in the backhoe bucket. She thought it was probably from her living room.

She lived in this home at 1646 Ellis Blvd. NW for 15 years. She lived her whole life, though, in the Time Check neighborhood - until the 2008 flood.

Two homes she lived in with her parents and one she rented before buying the home at 1646 Ellis Blvd. also have been or will be demolished.

“It's tough,” she said. “You see bits and pieces of things that remind you of things.”

She watched the deck she built in 2002 fold up and disappear “just like a deck of cards.” There was her bathtub, upside down amid the flotsam yet to be scooped out of the basement and hauled to the dump.

Two days before her house came down, Reifschneider, 52, dug up her day lilies, hostas, peonies and roses from the yard to transplant at her new home at 1005 Koudsi Blvd. NW. She removed some oak trim and a door from upstairs, too.

Then she watched the home come down.

“It's nice to start feeling some semblance of being done with it,” she said. “It's closure. That's one of the reasons I had to be here.”