NEW VINEYARD – Once the security of your home is violated, life is never the same.

Lorraine Chandler is finding that out after she and her husband, Richard, had their camp on Porter Lake broken into and vandalized June 17.

When she first saw the windows and glass doors broken out of the family camp the couple built 30 years ago, she was stunned.

“It was almost like I couldn’t breathe,” the 72-year-old woman said. “I looked at it and I couldn’t believe it.”

Glass was everywhere.

Vandals broke all but three windows, all the glass doors and ransacked the family camp breaking items in their wake. However, the liquor wasn’t touched.

More than two dozen camps on the lake here and in Strong met a similar fate. Four men age 18 to 21 and three 17 year-old boys face charges in the rampage.

Richard Chandler left the camp about 5 p.m. that day to go back to their Strong home, and returned the next morning to find the devastation as he drove down the driveway.

At first, he thought it might have been hit by lightning during a thunderstorm but he soon learned it was more than that.

“I cried for the first half of the day,” his wife said. After the cleaners came in, it seemed to help.

Emotions from shock to anger to sadness ran through her, she said.

“At the moment, I was very, very angry. That was a short time. But when I found out it was children and looking at the force and strength that these people had going through them when they did this, I really felt sorry for them. I couldn’t fathom why they would do this because all of them have destroyed their lives. Most of all, I feel deeply sorry for their parents,” Chandler said.

A lot of people say how can you not blame their parents.

“Thank heaven all of my children were good children,” she said. “I think that most parents do the very best they can bringing up their children today. I do honestly feel when these children went astray, it was not all drugs, alcohol or parents. I think it was the politicians when they made laws pertaining to children.”

They took away rights of parents to reprimand their children, limited the age and hours a young person may work, and have become liberal in punishment, she said. It has created loss of respect for school teachers and parents among others, she said.

“Thank God, they didn’t hurt anyone, she said, but they’ve done irreparable damage to their own lives.

“You can always replace the things they’ve done. We can replace the glass but they can never go back and replace what they’ve done to themselves,” Lorraine Chandler said.

Picture windows and glass doors are boarded up at the camp. Replacement is months away. Duct tape holds some shattered panes together on the glass doors. A new television in the living room has two pellet holes in the screen and a kick mark on the frame. Another TV upstairs is damaged. Living room furniture is ruined and the rugs all need to come up.

What’s helping the hurt, she said, is an outpouring of support from people they know and don’t know.

There are compassionate people in this world, she said.

“I have to thank all of the (Franklin County deputies). They worked so many hours. I was thankful they were able to break this as fast as they did,” Chandler said.

Even so, she doesn’t feel as secure as she once did.

“Right now our world is shattered,” she said.

Just like the once peaceful view from the glass doors overlooking the lake.

“Once you’ve been violated, your life changes,” she said. “I’m sure it never gets better.”

She’s never been afraid of staying alone and enjoying her quiet times.

But noises now seem to bother her and she’s locking her doors when she’s home.

“I can’t believe it changed me in just a few hours,” she said. “I hope I get over that. I like my independence.”