VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Getting used to new beginnings takes time. Especially when you're in Toni Cortellini's shoes, who's been forced to move forward after mother nature came knocking on her door.
Cortellini's home on Haversham Close in the Great Neck neighborhood of Virginia is one of more than 100 homes impacted by the EF-3 Great Neck tornado this April.
"My house had been wrecked, it has been a complete disaster," she said.
Analysis by the National Weather Service found wind speeds for the 4.5 mile tornado topped around 145 miles per hour.
Three months ago, 13News Now caught up with Cortellini as she watched her home of more than 30 years get demolished by a bulldozer.
Since then, her house, along with several others along the Haversham Close corridor, have been completely leveled. That's in addition to the other properties that still have exterior and cosmetic damages in the neighborhood.
Now, almost six months out from the tornado, she and her husband Charlie are beginning to rebuild; they're doing so on the same piece of land their old house once stood.
They said when looking at the other options on the housing market, no other option felt like home.
“It’s not just the house, it’s the furniture, everything will be new and not what we had before," Cortellini said.
“It seems like a long time, but thinking about the work these guys are doing it’s not easy," Charlie Cortellini said.
Charlie estimates that the new house, though roughly 600 square feet smaller than their last, will cost three times more than it did to build the original several decades ago.
They note other neighbors are planning to move back to newly built homes as well. However, they're the only homeowners among the leveled homes where work has at least begun.
"This is still home," Toni said.