Families Struggle to Rebuild After Sandy
MALVEAUX: This is an amazing story of survival. A New York family who lost everything after Superstorm Sandy are struggling to make a new life. And one of the biggest challenges is for this 13-year-old star student in the family to just get to school. Poppy Harlow has the story.</s>HARLOW (voice-over): The sun isn't up for breakfast time for the Panettas. (on camera): How tired are you?</s>RYAN PANETTA: Very.</s>HARLOW: Tim, Ryan, Christian and Carly are now living in a borrowed one bedroom apartment with their parents. (on camera): How long is your commute to school now?</s>RYAN PANETTA: It feels almost like two hours.</s>HARLOW: What did it used to be?</s>RYAN PANETTA: 15 minutes.</s>HARLOW: Wow. (voice-over): 6:30 a.m., and they're out the door. A long car ride --</s>KAREN PANETTA, RYAN'S MOTHER: Have a good day.</s>HARLOW: -- then a bus to Ryan's temporary school, PS 13.</s>KAREN PANETTA: It's unreal how much our life has changed, and we're trying to make the best of it.</s>HARLOW: He is an eighth grade honor student, one of 5,400 New York students still in different schools because of Sandy.</s>CARRIE JAMES, TEACHER: he is the one that I think was probably impacted the most, and yet, he has the strongest will to be here every day.</s>RYAN PANETTA: When something brings you down, you got to get up.</s>HARLOW (on camera): You OK, buddy? What makes you so sad?</s>RYAN PANETTA: I honestly don't know.</s>HARLOW: Everything?</s>RYAN PANETTA: Yes. It's everything.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop at the VFW for hot meals.</s>KAREN PANETTA: Have a good day, Ryan.</s>HARLOW (voice-over): Every day after school, Ryan returns to Broad Channel to help his dad try to put their home back together.</s>JOE PANETTA, FATHER OF RYAN: Everything I owned, everything I worked hard for, everything that was there, and it's gone. There's nothing.</s>HARLOW: Joe was working overnights and Karen was home with their four children when Sandy hit.</s>KAREN PANETTA: It was unbelievable how quick it came out.</s>HARLOW: The water rushed into their one story house. Ryan swam to a neighbor for help.</s>RYAN PANETTA: I jumped out.</s>HARLOW (on camera): You jumped out here in the water?</s>RYAN PANETTA: Yes. I wasn't even thinking that, like, a log would hit me or anything.</s>HARLOW: Or the electrical power lines?</s>RYAN PANETTA: Yes.</s>HARLOW: You swam to this house?</s>RYAN PANETTA: Yes, right here. And they took us into their second floor.</s>HARLOW (voice-over): The neighbor helped bring the rest of the family over, and they watched as the water engulfed the only home they had known. (on camera): What did you think when your 13-year-old son jumped in the water?</s>KAREN PANETTA: You know, I was panicking. I was panicking.</s>HARLOW: Did Ryan help save your family?</s>KAREN PANETTA: Absolutely.</s>HARLOW: No question?</s>KAREN PANETTA: Absolutely.</s>CHRISTIAN PANETTA, RYAN'S BROTHER: I was thinking that the rain is going to come.</s>HARLOW: Do you feel like your brother helped save you?</s>CHRISTIAN PANETTA: Yes.</s>HARLOW (voice-over): Now all the Panettas are working to rebuild their home, and erase the bad memories.</s>RYAN PANETTA: After what I have just been through, like, I don't hope I have to see anything that terrifying again.</s>HARLOW: Poppy Harlow, CNN, Broad Channel, New York.</s>MALVEAUX: We wish them the best. Medical marijuana doctors don't recommend it for children, but for one 6-year-old boy it brings new meaning to life.