Family and friends say heartbreaking farewell to father and son who died while clutching each other as Sandy floodwaters rushed into their home

• Father and son were covered in 12ft of water within seconds of Sandy’s strike
• Son refused to leave his dad’s side despite being warned to evacuate
• Deaths in Staten Island now up to 19 after the superstorm
• Brother of the father was a fireman during 9/11 but said ‘nothing compares’ to this family loss

By Daniel Bates

Published: 22:39 EDT, 5 November 2012 | Updated: 11:12 EDT, 6 November 2012

A tragic father and son who died side-by-side as the fierce floodwaters of Superstorm Sandy rushed into their home were buried together on Monday in an emotional funeral.

John Filipowicz, of Staten Island, and his son – also named John – were found clinging to each other in their basement as they shielded themselves from a  torrent which covered them in 12ft of water in seconds.

John Jr, 20, was found drowned in his father’s arms after telling relatives that he would not leave his father.

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A service was held for the father and son on Monday at Staten Island’s St Charles Church.

It was attended by dozens of mourners, including John Sr’s wife Christine and their surviving children Joseph – John Jr’s twin brother – and 16-year-old Cali.

DNAInfo reported that the two men were big fans of the New York Jets, and were buried in the jerseys of their favorite players – Joe Klecko for John Sr and Dustin Keller for John Jr.

Relatives said that the two had an ‘incredible bond’ and would never have been separated – in life or in death.

John Sr, 51, stayed behind to watch over the house, but his son refused to leave his side.

Among the mourners were John Sr’s wife Christine, and his two surviving children, Joseph, John Jr’s twin and 16-year-old Cali.

The deaths were among the 19 fatalities on Staten Island due to Superstorm Sandy, more than any other borough in New York. The total U.S. death toll currently stands at 110.

Among the other victims were Connor and Brandon Moore, aged four and two, who were swept out of their mother’s arms by a giant wave on the east coast of Staten Island.

The Filipowicz family lived on Fox Beach Avenue, which was among the hardest hit streets on the island.

Neil Filipowicz, 46, John Sr’s brother, told MailOnline that his brother decided to ignore warnings to evacuate after Hurricane Irene last year and a 1992 storm.

He said: ‘I spoke to Joseph and he said that that day he tried to get him to leave. He was on the phone and was telling John [Jr] to leave the house. He told him: ‘I’m not leaving Daddy.’

‘There was no way he was going to leave his dad at home. It was a bond how it’s supposed to be with your kids, between a son and a father. They loved each other so much. They had an incredible bond.’

Neil, a retired New York City firefighter who served on 9/11, said the family became concerned when they were unable to reach either father or son during Monday night’s storm.

Neil went to their house the next day at 7.30am, had a look round the house and noticed his brother’s keys and wallet were on the table but there was no sign of them.

Neil, Christine and other relatives then went round local hostels and when they found nothing, Neil went back to the house on his own.

Neil said: ‘I crawled through a hole in the wall that the water had made. I shone my flashlight from right to left and then I saw a hand, to my left.

‘I was praying it was a doll’s hand but I reached in the water and grabbed it and my nephew came up.

‘My brother came up too, he had his arm round the back of his head, shielding him.

‘I was pulling both of them at the same time, by their shirts and a neighbour came and helped me remove them and we put them on the side of the house until they were moved by the National Guard and the Medical Examiner.

‘My nephew was holding my brother and my brother was clutching him into his chest as if they knew they were dying.

‘My brother was protecting him. Their eyes were open. My brother looked intense, like he was still trying to fight the end and be the father and protect his son. My nephew was so scared.

‘The water line on this was 10ft up but I’m thinking it must have been much higher.’

Neil said that the two men were in the basement because they were checking on things.’

He added said: ‘I know my brother had some sandbags outside, he had used some expandable foam on the back door. No water got through it.

‘All the foam had to be cut out, he probably was checking on it and maybe he heard a crack in the structure, but once that gave way, the rush of the water, that pressure.

‘Some of the cinderblocks are over the other side of the basement. To be pushed like that, they shot like [a] cannon.’

Fighting back the tears, Neil said that he had been on duty as a New York City fireman on 9/11 but that ‘nothing compares to this because of the closeness.’

Neighbours knew John the elder as the ‘mayor’ of the street because he looked after them all by helping clean the snow out of the street in winter.

They in turn referred to him by the family nickname, ‘Flip’. Paying tribute to his brother, Neil said: ‘My brother was all about family. Even our friends were considered family, it was like an extended family.

‘He was United States Marine out of High School. He served in Greneda then he worked in the New York City Corrections Department and from there he retired and worked for the Concrete Labourers Union for a while.

‘He was a big family man, loved his wife and kids immensely. For the last few years he drove a bus for school kids.

‘He was football coach, a basketball coach. He was school baseball coach as well and was a church going man, he was a regular at St Charles Catholic church.’

Neil described John Jr as a ‘prince’ who did ‘anything for anyone.’

He said: ‘He was the heir to who is father was. He did everything right. He was never in trouble, he did everything right. He was devoted to his girlfriend. He went to college and took the Fire Department test, he was trying to better himself and thinking about becoming a nurse.’

VIDEO: Father and son laid to rest side by side

Silvio Berlusconi’s five children have united to bid a tearful farewell to their father at Milan’s gothic cathedral today as Italians held a national day of mourning for their former prime minister.

The children, from Berlusconi’s two marriages, were joined by thousands of mourners at the main square outside the Duomo to say their final farewell to the one-time cruise ship crooner turned billionaire media tycoon and politician.

Marina, 56, and Pier Silvio, 54 – from Berlusconi’s first marriage to Carla Elvira Lucia Dall’Oglio – and Barbara, 38, Eleonora, 37, and Luigi, 34 – from his second marriage to Veronica Lario – have been thrust into the limelight since their father’s death as rumours circulate about who will take on his empire valued at around £5.4 billion ($6.8 billion).

The late tycoon’s children were joined by Berlusconi’s 33-year-old partner Marta Fascina on the front bench of the Cathedral, as the former Italian prime minister was commemorated with a solemn state funeral.

The service for the 86-year-old billionaire attracted politicians and business leaders, as well as TV starlets, soccer players, soccer club chairmen, placard-waving fans of AC Milan, a club he owned for around three decades, and thousands of ordinary members of the public.

Marina, Berlusconi’s eldest daughter and the head of family holding Fininvest, held Fascina’s hand as they both wept as the coffin was placed before the altar.

Fascina had an established place in the family. She and Berlusconi never married, but last year they exchanged rings in a symbolic ceremony and he publicly called her his ‘wife’.

Unable to hold back her tears, she was seen again crying outside as the coffin left the building, on its way to be cremated.

The occasion has proved controversial in Italy, with many furious that such an honour is being bestowed upon a three-time Prime Minister and media mogul tarnished by scandals – including his famous Bunga Bunga sex orgies.

Nevertheless, tens of thousands of Berlusconi’s supporters gathered in the square in front of the Duomo to watch the proceedings live on giant screens, and applauded as the casket was carried up a flight of stairs and through the cathedral’s doors.

A further 2,300 people – made up of Italy’s business and political elite, including the president and three former premiers – gathered alongside Berlusconi’s children and companion, who openly wept as the casket was placed in front of the altar.

Today is also national day of mourning to mark the passing of the man that most Italians identify as the most influential figure in Italy over recent decades.

The media tycoon, soccer entrepreneur and three-time former Prime Minister – adored and loathed by Italians in equal measure – had been ill for several years, though he remained the official head of his right-wing Forza Italia party, a member of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s coalition government.

Berlusconi’s legacy – positive or negative – was being hotly debated among Italians in the run up to the event. 

Italians are split over whether the former premier merits all the fuss and ceremony that will be on display in Milan.

His family held a private wake Tuesday at one of Berlusconi’s villas near Milan, the city where he made his billions as the head of a media empire before entering politics in 1994. They were seen together again inside the Duomo today.

Marta Fascina, an MP and Berlusconi’s final partner, could not hold back her tears. Those around her, included her partners older children, comforted her.

She was at his bedside as he succumbed to a rare type of blood cancer.

His two eldest children Marina and Pier Silvio were also front-and-centre during the ceremony. Marina, presumed to be the primary heir to Berlusconi’s media empire  also wiped away tears as the ceremony got under way. 

Fascina – 53 years Berlusconi’s junior – never officially married the tycoon, but they held a ‘fake’ ceremony in 2022 – making him his third ‘wife’. His ex-wives are understood to have been in attendance inside the cathedral too.

Some reports have suggested that Marina did not approve of Fascina and Berlusconi’s plans to get married. Nevertheless, she was seen comforting her father’s ‘widow’ all the same as the pair walked into the Duomo together.

Outside, large wreaths in the colours of the Italian flag stood along the front of the Duomo, where the ceremony began at 3:00 pm (1400 GMT).

It was presided over by Archbishop of Milan Mario Delpini. The cathedral was packed, but many more gathered in the square.

Delpini did not gloss over Mr Berlusconi’s complicated legacy in his eulogy.

He said he was a businessman who found success and failure, a politician who won and lost, and a notoriety-seeking personality who had admirers and detractors, ‘those who applaud him and those who detest him’.

‘When a man is a politician, then he tries to win. There are those who exalt him and those who cannot stand him,’ Delpini said in his homily.

‘When a man is a protagonist, then he is always on stage. He has those who applaud him and those who detest him,’ he said.

‘But in this moment of farewell and prayer, what can we say about Silvio Berlusconi? He has been a man: a desire for life, a desire for love, a desire for joy,’ he said. 

‘He is a man and now he meets God.’

With family members, political allies and opponents also sat in the pews inside.

Hungarian President Viktor Orban, Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Iraqi President Abdel Latif Rashid were among the highest-ranking foreign dignitaries attending.

Ms Meloni, who got her first government experience as a minister in a Berlusconi coalition, also attended, along with League leader Matteo Salvini, whose party has long been allied with Mr Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella was there too, while the European Union was represented by its economy commissioner Paolo Gentiloni.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella and former Premiers Matteo Renzi, Paolo Gentiloni and Mario Draghi were on hand, as well as other politicians, in a show of respect for a political figure with whom many had sparred. 

AC Milan legend and former England manager Fabio Capello was seen arriving to the cathedral earlier too. Berlusconi owned the Milan club from 1986 to 2017 through a sustained period of success – winning him adoration among the fans.

Among the crowd outside the Duomo was Lucia Adiele, a member of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia who travelled nearly 1,000 kilometres from her home in Altamura, southern Italy, to bid farewell to her favourite politician.

‘I was lucky enough to be a part of Forza Italia for 18 years. I was also lucky enough to meet him. The least I could do was to be here and say goodbye for the last time,’ she told Reuters TV. 

Fellow supporter Luigi Vecchione, 48, said Berlusconi was ‘my first and last political love. It’s a very sad day for Italy’. 

Not everyone in the crowd was a devotee, however. Amateur photographer Gianfranco Diletta, 65, said he had come to ‘immortalise this mass phenomenon’.

‘I never voted for Berlusconi, who embodied for Italy the modern populism of the 1990s… and was a friend of Putin’s to the end, a strategic error which put Italy’s national security in danger,’ he said.

The ceremony finished around an hour and a half after it began, with the coffin seen leaving the cathedral on its way to be cremated. 

Berlusconi’s ashes will be taken to the family mausoleum in the grounds of his villa in the northern town of Arcore, a source close to the family told Reuters news agency.

After a state funeral on Wednesday, the coffin will be returned to Villa San Martino, near Milan, to await the cremation which will take place at the Valenziano Panta Rei Crematorium Temple, near the city of Alessandria.

Berlusconi, who died on Monday at the age of 86, hired sculptor Pietro Cascella to build the mausoleum in the early 1990s.

Berlusconi originally built it to bury himself, his family members and friends, but then found out the law only allows bodies to be buried in public cemeteries, his long-time friend and art critic Vittorio Sgarbi told AdnKronos news agency.

Ashes can be placed in the mausoleum however.

Italian media described it as a white marble structure with an underground mortuary. A sarcophagus made for Berlusconi stands at the centre and a frieze representing chains is carved on the walls, with the tied rings seen as a symbol of family union.

The longest-serving premier in Italy’s postwar history, and re-elected to the Senate last year, Berlusconi was famed for controversial gaffes on the international stage.

Political opponents are questioning not only the decisions of Premier Giorgia Meloni’s government to hold a state funeral – an honour that can be afforded to all former premiers – but to also declare a national day of mourning.

National days of mourning are more rarely invoked. 

As part of the latter, flags were lowered to half mast on all public buildings from Monday in tribute to a leader whose influence extended well beyond politics, thanks to his extensive TV, newspaper and sporting interests.

Parliament was suspended for three days and the government declared a national day of mourning for Wednesday – the first time for an ex-prime minister.

But the decision was criticised by Berlusconi’s detractors, who accused him of cronyism, corruption and pushing through laws to protect his own interests.

Senator Andrea Crisanti said he was ‘strongly against’ such national honours for ‘someone who had no respect for the state’, pointing to Berlusconi’s definitive conviction for tax fraud in 2013.

Rosy Bindi, former head of the Antimafia Commission, said it was ‘inopportune’ for ‘a person as divisive as Berlusconi’.

Repubblica daily said the ‘institutional shutdown’ was ‘extreme’ and compared it to Britain’s protocol for Queen Elizabeth II’s death.

‘Berlusconi split Italy, he insulted adversaries for 30 years, he criminalised the magistrates and he didn’t recognise laws. What are we talking about?’ journalist Marco Travaglio, a long-time Berlusconi critic and co-founder of the il Fatto Quotidiano daily, told private La7 TV on Monday.

Berlusconi is widely recognised as a precursor to the type of populist politics that later would bring Donald Trump to power in the United States.

Both used their high profile as businessmen to springboard into the political arena, upending politics as usual along the way.

Supporters of Berlusconi’s legacy cite his success in unifying the Italian center-right after the collapse of the post-war political landscape with the 1990s ‘Clean Hands’ corruption scandal. 

They also see his years as leader as periods of stabilisation, after years of quickly rotating governments, while admiring his bold rule-breaking and irreverence, perhaps especially in the face of other global leaders.

‘He did many big and small things, while suffering a mediatic and judicial aggression that only Craxi before him had endured,’ Stefania Craxi, a senator in Berlusconi’s party and the daughter of late Italian leader Bettino Craxi told private TV La7.

Her father died in exile in Tunisia in 2000 after being convicted in absentia for involvement in illegal party financing.

Berlusconi’s detractors’ list of political damage is long.

It includes conflicts of interest relating to his media empire, dozens of trials mostly for business dealings, revelations of sex-fuelled Bunga-Bunga parties at his villa near Milan and questionable associations.

The most controversial is his enduring friendship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who is subject to an international arrest warrant and cannot travel to Italy.

‘He is not a leader who helped us grow,’ said Beppe Severgnini, a long-time foreign correspondent and writer for Corriere della Sera. ‘He tapped all of our weaknesses: moral, fiscal, sexual, everything.’ 

Family and friends of the late Jock Zonfrillo made an emotional exit from a Sydney chapel on Saturday morning as they farewelled the celebrity chef.

The Masterchef judge, who died on April 30 aged 46, was laid to rest in a private funeral surrounded by a small group of family and friends. 

Zonfrillo’s widow Lauren Fried, who shares children, Alfie, six, and Isla, two, with her late husband, was among the pallbearers who led a close-knit of mourners out of the small chapel after celebrating his life.

She carried his coffin alongside Zonfrillo’s fellow Masterchef judge Andy Allen and four other men.

Zonfrillo’s coffin was covered with the Royal Banner of Scotland and adorned with white orchids.

The Royal Banner is a nod to the chef’s Scottish heritage. He was born and raised in Glasgow.

A Scottish marcher played the bagpipes as the pallbearers exited the chapel.

Guests exited the venue in silence, while Allen looked visibly emotional – breaking down in tears while carrying Zonfrillo’s coffin.

As guests arrived for the morning service, a black and white photograph of Zonfrillo was also placed inside the Sydney chapel.

Guests were dressed head-to-toe in black as friends, family, and notable stars solemnly led the arrivals.

Among those who attended were Zonfrillo’s fellow Masterchef judges Melissa Leong – who was visibly emotional and comforted by her friends as she went inside – Andy Allen and his pregnant wife Alex Davey, former Masterchef judge George Calombaris, and celebrity chef Shannon Bennett.

Other TV chefs who turned out to pay their respects included My Kitchen Rules stars Manu Feidel and Colin Fassnidge, as well as Miguel Maestre and Matt Moran.

Irish-born Fassnidge was distraught following the sombre farewell and was seen holding his hand to his face and he fought back tears.

Feidel wrapped his arm around Moran as they comforted each other while leaving the emotional service. 

Jimmy Barnes had arrived alone to the memorial, but was later joined by daughter Mahalia as they sang Amazing Grace together, while former Australian of the Year Grace Tame attended with her fiancé Max Heerey.

Wheelchair tennis champion and 2022 Australian of the Year Dylan Alcott also paid his respects.

Following the memorial, Fassnidge shared a photo of his hand grasping a glass of whiskey on the rocks as he and a group of others attended a ‘random pub’.

The grief-stricken celebrity chef sat at a tartan-patterned tablecloth – the pattern is often associated with Scotland, where Zonfrillo was born, as Scottish kilts most often have tartan patterns.

‘Very fitting the random pub we drop in for a farewell whiskey,’ he wrote alongside the photo. 

The service has been kept firmly under wraps by Fried, who sent out invitations for the Sydney interment earlier this week.

They were accompanied with strict instructions for family and celebrity friends to not reveal any details about the funeral.

Fried also revealed to guests there would be no wake held after the burial, an attendee told the publication on Saturday.

‘The family just wants it to happen without any of the attention his death has attracted, which has understandably been overwhelming,’ they said. 

The funeral patron added: ‘They’re trying to keep it as personal as they can. It’s critical they be given the space to do that.’

While Zonfrillo and his family resided in Melbourne during his role on MasterChef, Fried chose to host his funeral in Sydney. 

She reportedly chose the location as she originally hails from Sydney, where her extended family is based, and it’s where Zonfrillo first moved to from Glasgow 23 years ago.

Zonfrillo died in his hotel room at Zagame’s House on Lygon Street in Carlton, Melbourne on April 30 and was found by police at about 2am on Monday, May 1 – the same day Channel Ten was meant to premiere the fifteenth season of MasterChef Australia. 

They were responding to a welfare check called in by his wife who was in Italy at the time with their son and daughter. 

The media personality was scheduled for several publicity engagements for season 15 of MasterChef when he died suddenly. 

Daily Mail Australia can reveal that when the police entered the hotel room to conduct a welfare check, officers believed that Zonfrillo had died of natural causes and didn’t find anything that suggested otherwise.

There was also no drug paraphernalia found in the hotel room, sources said.

In the wake of the tragic news, Zonfrillo’s fellow Masterchef judges Melissa Leong and Andy Allen pulled out of all media appearances to promote the cooking show’s return.

The season premiere was rescheduled to Sunday, May 7.

Zonfrillo is survived by his third wife, Lauren Fried, and his four children: grown-up daughters Ava and Sophia, from his first two marriages, and six-year-old Alfie and two-year-old Isla, with Fried.