Evergreen residents deal with fallen trees after powerful winds across Colorado

High winds turned the big, beautiful trees that make Evergreen, Colorado, so green into safety hazards Thursday.

Evergreen Fire/Rescue responded to at least 75 calls related to the wind.

One of the worst-hit areas was Forest Estates Road, where large trees fell on buildings, power lines and roads. A core power transformer was even uprooted in the area.

Thursday, the power was out across Evergreen, and gusty winds wreaked havoc.

"I'm from Florida, so I know what a hurricane sounds like. That's what it sounded like," said Brook Forest neighbor John Hanson.

Thursday morning, Hanson says a loud boom broke through the sound of the wind.

"We lost that big tree, which snapped. My neighbor lost like 20 trees. It's just crazy down here," Hanson said.

A tree had fallen on his garage.

"It's definitely gone. The roof's gone," Hanson said.

Just in December, wind uprooted another tree that narrowly missed his trailer.

"That tree is huge, and it snapped right off. This tree uprooted," Hanson said. "(Earlier) I was like, 'I hope we don't get a big wind like we did last time,' and we did, so it's getting old."

Hanson says as much as he loves Evergreen, the repeated issues make him and his wife consider moving.

"It's getting weird that we're losing more and more trees," said Hanson.

Around the same time on Thursday, up the road, Mary Cobb and her brother were leaving after the power went out.

"My brother had some kind of weird intuition and was like, 'let's go before a tree gets knocked down,'" said Brook Forest neighbor Mary Cobb.

They returned to find a fallen tree tangled in power lines blocking her driveway. Two other trees had fallen behind her home.

"Wow. Okay, now what?" said Cobb. "We're just glad that the car was gone. We left early enough."

Cobb said her brother's car would have been crushed if it had been at the house.

Thursday afternoon, Mary loaded up the essentials.

"The laptops and the bathroom bags and snacks and everybody's ski gear in here," said Cobb while loading the car.

She and her family are heading for a hotel in the mountains, deciding to get an early start on their ski weekend.

"We can't get in and out of the driveway for one, and the power lines are down. So it just feels very dangerous," said Cobb.

Even after the stress and inconvenience, the neighbors are counting their blessings, grateful the wind didn't do worse.

"I'm very glad that we're okay. My wife's okay. We're all okay, except for the garage," Hanson said.

"If the power was on and these trees fell. Yeah, that probably would have been a problem," said Cobb.

The wind caused the power to go out in that neighborhood around 10 a.m. Given the dry conditions and the number of downed lines, that may have prevented a fire from starting.