When Hurricane Sandy hit Massapequa two years ago, so much was lost but at least one special thing survived all the destruction.
Inside a pile of debris on her front lawn, homeowner Leah Welsh found a vintage black-and-white photo showing a woman in a dress pinning a flower onto a man's tuxedo.
"I called my husband over and I said, 'Can you believe that I just found a picture? And look at the condition of it, it's perfect,'" said Welsh.
The picture is from a different time. Welsh does not know who the two people pictured are, but it's clear the photo captured a special moment.
"I think this is a photo of daughter putting a boutonniere on her father on her wedding day," she said.
She noted how apparent it was the two were happy.
"Just the smiles on their faces and the love you can see between them," she said.
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"It actually brought tears to my eyes because... I couldn't believe that I found it," she added.
Welsh tried her best to find the owners but had no luck. Two years later, she dug up the photo again in another effort to locate the owners.
"Sandy was a huge devastation for a lot of people, and you can replace materialistic items and personal belongings, but a picture is really special," she said.
There was a promising development after her interview with NBC 4 New York late Friday: Welsh said she got an email from someone saying they were related to the people in the photo. She's hoping this may finally be her chance to return the photo to its rightful owners.
