MILWAUKEE — If you look at the sloping lawn outside of Tony Soto and Alyssa Feavel's home, you'll see it leads directly to their patio door.
It was a charming part of the unit that they liked when they decided to move in three months ago.
This weekend, it became a ramp for several feet of vicious floodwaters to shatter the glass door and destroy everything they own.
Watch: Couple escapes through window as floodwaters destroy their home
"The water was up to here, the water was eventually pouring up to the sides and stuff, you can see where the water line was," Feavel said, pointing to marks still visible on the walls.
When TMJ4 visited their home Monday, crews were still working to drain water from inside the building. Walking into their unit revealed devastating damage—furniture overturned, belongings scattered, and water damage throughout.
The flooding happened so quickly that the couple found themselves trapped as water poured through their shattered patio door.
"By the time the water was coming in everything was floating around already. We couldn't even get through or maneuver to get things," Feavel said.
The rising water pinned their doors shut, forcing them to escape through their kitchen window.
"This is the window we had to go out of and it's extremely hard to move, like it's really hard to open it up," Feavel explained.
Soto was the first to notice water entering their home and woke Feavel as the situation rapidly deteriorated.
"I was right here in this corner and I started hearing water pour in," Soto said.
The couple managed to save only their cat and car keys before escaping. Everything else—furniture, clothing, belongings—was left behind.
"It was a beautiful apartment and just to see everything ruined, it's sad and we literally lost everything, not much could have been salvaged," Soto said.
The situation was particularly dangerous for Feavel, who is a Type 1 diabetic and had to leave all her medication behind.
"I had nothing, I had to rush to the hospital cause with all the adrenaline my blood sugar was at like 450 so we spent like the whole entire morning in the hospital," Feavel said.
The couple said one silver lining amid the devastation is that their 3-year-old daughter was spending the night at her grandmother's house and wasn't present during the chaos.
Now, Soto and Feavel are working to rebuild their lives while searching for a new place to call home.
They've established a GoFundMe for anyone looking to assist in their recovery.
"I'm just happy to be alive," Feavel said.
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