An elderly couple in Hawaii faced a heartbreaking loss when their dream home was swept away by a river that overflowed during a severe storm.

Tom and Carrie Bashaw, both in their eighties, invested their entire life savings into their Maui residence, only for it to be destroyed less than six years after its completion.

They are among several Hawaiians who suffered total losses after a rare cold-core cyclone, referred to as a Kona, unleashed 44 inches of rain on Maui and pummeled other parts of the state.

The powerful storm initially hit Hawaii’s northern islands of Kauai and Oahu on Thursday, before making its way across the entire archipelago over the following days.

The Bashaws embarked on constructing their dream house in Wailuku, the county seat of Maui, in 2020.

Perched on a hill with a view of the Iao Stream, the house was situated near a waterway that is typically dry or has only minimal water flow.

The couple told Hawaii News Now they were not worried about flooding, because the home was 75 feet away from the stream and 45 feet above it. 

But on Saturday morning, the typically modest waters swelled into a raging river, eroding the rocks that made up the foundation of the Bashaws’s home, causing it to fall apart and get swept away by the floodwater. 

Tom and Carrie Bashaw, both around 80 years old, lost their dream home in Hawaii after a devastating storm battered the archipelago last week

The home overlooked a small stream that swelled dramatically and eroded the foundation. The entire back of the home was swept away, and the aftermath of the damage is pictured

The couple began building the house on Maui Island in 2020 after saving for their entire lives to do so. The house is pictured before it was destroyed 

The couple told Hawaii News Now that they began monitoring the Kona storm’s impacts on Friday, when they noticed that the swelling stream was beginning to knock over trees along its banks. 

Eventually, trees closer to the property collapsed and a large area of land between the stream and the house began to give way and slide into the water. 

After a monkey pod tree and a mango tree fell on their property, ‘we started throwing stuff in bags and packing up,’ Tom told Hawaii News Now. 

‘Half an hour, 45 minutes later, the river had come all the way up to the edge of the deck of the house, the back deck, which was about 60 feet straight down.’

The Bashaws fled their home around 9pm and slept in a barn on their property that night. They brought their cats, Civa and Ty.

When they returned to the house on Saturday to survey the damage, it was worse than they could have imagined. 

‘The whole backside of the house was in the river, gone,’ Tom said. ‘Food was gone. Both bedrooms gone.’

The couple began salvaging what they could, but not much was left. They grabbed a few pieces of furniture, some tools and cat food. 

The couple fled their home on Friday evening but when they returned the next morning, they found the entire back of the house had been swept away and they took this photo

The couple said the house was 75 feet away from the stream and 45 feet above it, so they did not think the house was in danger of flood damage. The swollen stream is pictured raging below the half of the house it swept away

The house’s garage was swept away around noon on Saturday while the couple was salvaging what they could. The destroyed back of the house is pictured over the floodwater

Later that day, more of the house also succumbed to the raging swell. Around noon, while the Bashaws were examining the damage and salvaging what they could, the garage of the home was swept away as well. 

‘I just went in and grabbed the last thing inside the garage, and about two minutes later, we heard the cracking,’ Tom told Hawaii News Now.  

‘I held my phone up and videotaped it, and it just went boom, right into the water.’

The Bashaws bought the property in 2018 and built a cottage before beginning work on the main house two years later. 

They had put years of work into building the home and Tom was still working on the final touches when it was all destroyed. 

The couple did not have flood insurance because the house was not in a designated flood zone and seemed to be far enough from the nearby stream. 

Tom said he and his wife ‘were never really worried,’ because they had seen the stream swell before, but nothing close to what happened last week.  

‘Mother Nature wins, and she wants you, she takes you. She didn’t take us, she just took the house. We’re grateful for that. We have each other,’ Tom told Hawaii News Now. 

The Bashaws are now sleeping with their cats on the pictured air mattresses in a storage container on their property

Since losing their home, the Bashaws have been sleeping with their cats on air mattresses in a storage container on their property, according to a GoFundMe set up by Carrie’s daughter Stephanie Ichinose. 

‘What was once their safe and comfortable home, designed and built lovingly by Tom himself, is now a memory,’ Ichinose wrote on the fundraiser page. 

The money raised, which sits at nearly $48,500 as of Monday evening, ‘will go toward immediate needs such as safe temporary housing, replacing essential belongings, debris removal, and beginning the process of rebuilding their lives.’