Their front yard vanished in the flood. Now Leominster couple wonder if house can be saved

LEOMINSTER — This month’s flash floods, which washed out roads, partially submerged cars on highways, forced residents to evacuate their homes and turned basements into indoor swimming pools, has a Pleasant Street family uncertain if it will ever set foot in its home again.

Arthur and Joanne Obin have been living in a single-family brick home at 208 Pleasant St. at Colburn Street for nearly 35 years. Arthur Obin, 72, is a retired cryogenic technician for Brooks Automation, formerly Helix, where he worked for 35 years. Joanne Obin, 70, owned her own electrolysis business in Leominster for many years.

During the evening of Sept. 11, when a stalled tropical air mass poured 9.5 inches of rain on the Leominster area, the Obins had to bolt out of their home as the earth, concrete and pavement that surrounded it was swallowed up by a sinkhole.

André Obin, 44, of Somerville, is the couple's only child. He grew up in Leominster from ages 10 to 18, then went away to Wheaton College in Norton.

“It’s shocking,” André Obin said. “If it wasn’t built on a foundation that goes 30 feet down, the entire house would have been swept downstream into the condominiums behind 208 Pleasant Street. It would have been an absolute disaster, not just for my family.”

In addition to being the human resources coordinator at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, André Obin is a composer and a DJ who has won the Electronic Artist of the Year Award at the Boston Music Awards. Since his parents' recent ordeal, André Obin has been in charge of all the family’s paperwork in applying for emergency assistance.

“I’m more tech savvy than (his parents), so I’ve done a lot of the FEMA registration and reaching out to the Red Cross,” André Obin said. “I’ve done everything I can to help them this past week with the GoFundMe and logistics and stuff.”

Protecting them from unnecessary stress in the wake of his parents' losing their home, André Obin has become the unofficial spokesman for the family. Television news stations have aired images of hard-hit Pleasant Street.

Although he wasn’t in Leominster for the storm, André Obin has been back regularly since and has seen what the wrath of nature has done to his family home, which was built in 1948.

“Twenty seconds after they drove away, their entire walkway that they just been standing on completely collapsed,” André Obin said. “That image of them just falling into the whirlpool water that was my parents’ front lawn is terrifying. Even though we’re totally devastated, it could have been so much worse.”

Obin said his parents are still in shock but in spirit they’re “a solid six out of 10.”

“My parents are stable and they’re not hysterical,” he said. “So that’s good.”

Summing up how he’s doing personally, André Obin — who confesses that he’s been so stressed out from his parents' recent hardship that he had to be prescribed blood pressure medicine — said it’s the hardest thing he has ever faced.

“It’s tough to see your own parents suffer,” he said. “The most difficult thing is knowing that they don’t have the comforts of home and that they’re displaced. That property at 208 Pleasant Street, that home was all of my family’s material wealth basically. It’s just one of those things that you think could never happen to you or your family but here we are. I’m just so grateful that they made it out alive.”

Credits neighbors with saving parents' lives

André Obin credits two neighbors for saving his parents' lives. He knows them only by their first names, Zac and Justin.

“Zac asked Justin to run over and get them out," Obin said. "My parents were still packing their bags when Justin starts slamming on the front door saying, 'You got to get out! You got to get out!' My mom said back, ‘Oh, I just have to grab one more thing.’ He said, ‘No! You have to come now!’ My mom was literally in slippers. They got out to Zac’s property and were able to drive away right before the walkway collapse.”

An hour before they evacuated, Zac convinced Arthur Obin to move his Jeep to the neighbors' driveway.

“My parents were paying attention to the backyard, which had become a lake, and weren’t paying attention to the front yard, which was very close to opening up to the sinkhole,” André Obin said. “About 20 minutes before they left, my dad was downstairs and he said the boulders that were coming down from Barrett Park dam were so large and hitting the house with so much force. When he started hearing the sounds of the boulders smashing the culvert and the foundation of the house, he realized that there was a real possibility that they were going to lose the house.”

When his parents finally got out of the house, they went to their Jeep in Zac’s driveway, André Obin said, but Arthur Obin had forgotten the car keys.

“My dad was going to try to go back in (the house). When he went to where the walkway would be, he thought he was hallucinating, like where’s the walkway? It had been engulfed by the sinkhole. He described it to me as like looking down into the abyss the rushing, whirlpool water 15 to 30 feet down all the way into the foundation,” André Obin said.

Fortunately, Joanne Obin had a spare key in her pocketbook.

Although he hasn’t yet met Zac and Justin, André Obin plans to visit them this weekend and thank them personally.

“The fact that Zac and Justin could have been responsible for saving my parents’ lives, I’ll never be able to repay them in any monetary value but they basically have been like a new brother for life in me,” André Obin said.

In an interview, Zac and Justin, who describe themselves as “Biblical Christian,” didn’t want to give their last names to a reporter, saying they didn't want the attention.

“I would want all the glory to go to God because he is the reason that both me and Justin did what we did,” Zac said. “Normally we would be scared, grabbing our stuff, getting all our IDs and cash and hightailing for high ground. But, because God is in us and he tells us to be the light of the world, it gives us courage. It gives us bravery. And it gives us a desire to help people when they need it. And that’s what we both tried to do that night.”

Can the house be saved?

Although it is still standing, the future of the house at 208 Pleasant St. is uncertain.

“The house is officially sinking now because of the damage, and it’s not just the flood damage. It’s the sinkhole damage from the street,” André Obin said. “It sounds like the City of Leominster is going to work with civil engineers to rezone that section of Colburn and Pleasant where my parents’ house used to be, because they need to protect the entire neighborhood and the integrity of that corner.”

In the aftermath of the disaster, the Obins were allowed to get some of their belongings out of the home.

“The Fire Department let us get personal keepsakes out, like artwork and family photos. But we really couldn’t get anything heavy out because of structural integrity,” André Obin said. “The day that they let us get some personal belongings, what seemed to be the entire Leominster Fire Department came out and provided muscle. Of course, the mayor showed up too. It definitely made my parents feel supported.”

Like many in Leominster, the Obins did not have flood insurance. The insurance company has deemed the events of Sept. 11 an “act of God,” according to André Obin.

“We’re in it for the long haul here in terms of what we’re going to have to do, in regard to legal affairs, federal and state aid,” André Obin said. “There are so many moving puzzle pieces. It’s pretty ugly.”

Still, the Obin family is trying to be optimistic that everything will be work out in the end.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: After flood, Leominster couple wonder if house can be saved