Tree on house--luckily missed us!

[P Thought]

We had a surprise snowstorm, with six inches of wet snow overnight. At 2:30 a.m., with the power out (it would stay out for almost four days,) we awoke to a godawful racket. My wife said, "The tree fell on us!" and before my feet hit the floor I was celebrating that it was down and we were alive. I'd been meaning to do something about this tree.



Here it is from the front of the house. My chimney is under there somewhere.



We were very lucky. My son came down from Springfield and replaced the torn-up corner of the roof, and a section of chimney and a cap took care of everything. I'll fix the gutters and soffits later. Here's a view from up the hill:

[Brad Pittiful]

glad everyone is ok man!

[tazzboy]

Yeah you got lucky there man.

[Nick JD]

Whoa! Lucky it seems to have fallen softly. Did the whole root-ball come out?

Is that an Alder?

[DonMI6]

When we had a massive strorm & flooding here a few years ago, the house 3 doors down had a tree collapse on it. Thankfully nobody hurt, but they had tarpaulins patching up their roof for what seemed to be months. Dreadful thing to happen, glad your all OK!

[Warren Pederson]

Wouldn't your insurance cover all that?

[P Thought]

Our insurance carries a thousand-dollar deductible. With us fixing it ourselves, the cost came to less than that.

It's a myrtle tree. When we bought our house, 27 years ago, you could barely see it in pictures taken from the front yard. I had been afraid of it breaking at the joint of the branch that leaned over our bedroom: that would have killed us a lot deader than this. It broke at the base instead.

Also I am fortunate in having a son who is so good to his parents, and so good with his tools. Fixing our roof was a "busman's holiday" for him.

I didn't have the money to pay him, but Daniel had made the body for my favorite guitar, the one shown below, on the right, so I gave him the one on the left, which I made myself.

[uriah1]

Yikes. We had a tree hit tele pole that came down last year...
If it does not hit house, insurance does not pay
glad you are ok

[Dan German]

A few years ago, I woke up in the middle of the night and thought "did I hear something?" I decided it was just the wind, and went back to sleep. I got up a few hours later, and went down to the kitchen to make coffee. I thought it seemed awfully dark in the kitchen, so I tried to look out the back door (frosted glass). Everything looked all green. I went to the door and looked in the back yard, and a 45 foot acer negundo was laying on my kitchen roof. It had snapped off about three feet off the ground. Our part of town had been hit by dozens of "microbursts" during the storm that night, and trees were down all over. I live on a dead-end street, and all three directions I can go were blocked off by fallen trees. We needed to make an insurance claim, because the kitchen roof and deck were both pretty badly damaged.

[DrumBob]

Glad you're OK. In 2009, we had a severe ice storm and the house got directly hit or grazed by four trees. We had to have a crane come and get them off. I have a ton of pictures I took for insurance purposes, and we cleaned up on the settlement. I still have a couple of big suckers that could hit us at some point, God forbid. I should have them taken down.

The upside of all this was, I now have much more sunlight in the backyard, and much less leaves to rake in the fall!

[dog fart]

And I thought yesterdays hail damage to my roof sucked. To echo everyones sentiments here, I'm glad that you and your family are all alright

[TeleTim911]

Really glad to hear you are all okay.

[promagnum]

Glad that old Ford was spared.

Just curious. How much are you asking?

[dented]

Glad you guys are okay.

[hazcat]

There were lots of scenes like that over here in the valley, as well. I was glad to have taken care of the two dodgy spruces in my yard. Glad everyone's safe! Someone could have, uh, perished.

Also, if I were a contractor, I would nail a business card to your mailbox. I like the way you pay! By the way, I've seen some nice solidbodies made from myrtlewood... call it "the Widowmaker."

[P Thought]

I really count us lucky on this. Thanks everyone for the well-wishes.

@ promagnum: $2100. It's just the number I pulled out of my hat. I haven't done anything aggressive toward selling it yet. A boy at school says he wants to buy it this summer. It needs someone who'll drive it every day.

@ hazcat: I heard the snow was something in the valley. I have several body-sized chunks of myrtlewood drying in my garage, from a tree that went down at my mom's house a couple years ago. Maybe this summer I'll make myself another P-90 esquire from one of them.

[Canuckcaster]

Next time move into a place that's not so close to that many trees.

Glad everyone's alright.

CC

[Tred]

In Oregon (or Washington), it's a way of life. I remember living through a wind storm that knocked out power to Seattle and surrounding area for over a week. I think it was 2.5 million people that went dark, and then the ensuing snow & ice storms that followed a few years back. Glad you're okay.

[tazzboy]

Yeah there was nasty one back 10 years ago in February that took out gazebo and fence.

[backporch guy]

During our last hurricane(Ike or Gustav, forget which), I was sitting in the front room with our poodle, Tabasco, now deceased, listening to the progress of the storm on the radio. The weather report was that the tale end of the storm was starting to pass over out location, and the winds would soon start to calm a bit. I looked down at the dog and said " Tabasco, if we can last another hour with no damage, we'll be ok." For 2 days I had had nobody to talk to but the dog. right at that moment, there was a loud thump on the front corner and the hous shook. A large white oak in the front yard had up rooted, and fallen, luckily only clipping the edge. To the OP, glad every one is ok and the damage was minimal.