RIP to Heart Lake Island

On Christmas Eve, when I was filling the bathtub for the smallest tot in the family, I found the switch at the bottom of the bathtub with ACNH still in it. I never backed up our island, and rice did not bring the switch back to life. I’ll admit, it did make my eyes fill with tears knowing how much work we put into our island, but my daughter is taking it harder than I expected. Are there any secrets to recovering an unbacked up island or should we just start over?