‘I have to start all over’: Hanahan family loses home after Ian downs tree

HANAHAN, S.C. (WCSC) - Rose Klauss was working from the Hanahan house that she rents on Friday when Hurricane Ian hit the Lowcountry. She was taking a customer’s call when she heard a loud boom. Her family in the living room started screaming.

The storm caused her neighbor’s tree to fall on her home. The ceiling started falling and debris covered the interior of the home.

The city of Hanahan deemed the home uninhabitable. Klauss said they lost everything, including her children’s clothing and diapers.

“I’m only 21 years old and I come from pretty much nothing, and I worked really hard to get where I got, and I feel like everything got taken back from me,” Klauss said.

Klauss’ employer is putting her family up in a hotel this week, but after the week is over, Klauss said she doesn’t know what they will do.

“It’s gonna take a while,” Klauss said. “So, I don’t know how we’re gonna be split up. I don’t want my kids to be hotel to hotel, but I will do what I have to do.”

But despite the unknowns, Klauss said she and her family are lucky to be alive. She said normally her wife and son would be in the room that sustained the most damage from the tree.

“I’m thankful for my kids,” Klauss said. “That they aren’t hurt, because they’re so little and their tiny bodies couldn’t have taken that. Our ceiling literally came down over our bed.”

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