North Bay 73-year-old left without a home after tree crashes into house
Days of pouring rain and heavy winds led to major damage to a home in Rohnert Park.
A 73-year-old woman was inside her home as a large eucalyptus tree came crashing down. Now, she has nowhere to go after her home was red tagged.
Terry Hall's sister was inside the living room of this home around 1 in the afternoon. Then, the wind picked up.
"She was in her chair and the roof caved in and she's looking around," said Terry Hall. "Tree, where did the tree come from because it punctured right through the roof."
Hall's sister was trapped inside her home until firefighters were able to get her out through the front door. She had to leave everything behind to get out safely.
"The spine of the house is broken," Hall said. "Some of the walls are caved in. They're slanted in so almost going to have to rebuild almost from the ground up."
Andre Bailey was shocked when he returned home to see what had happened to his neighbor's house.
"I'm so grateful that she's alive," Bailey said.
He said he worked extensively with his neighbor to maintain the eucalyptus tree, but it couldn't hold up to this series of storms.
"We knew we had a lot of rain that's saturated these heavy trees," Bailey said. "With the combination of the wind, it's almost, I won't say inevitable, but just the probability of something like this happening was a high probability."
Hall's sister didn't want to be identified, but she's been renting this home for about 10 years. The Red Cross came out to help, but Hall said that help will run out in a matter of days.
"After that, we're just going to have to somehow find a place to live for her," Hall said. "She's on a fixed income, so it's going to be pretty difficult."
The hope is to find a temporary place to stay while her house gets fixed up. But with this much damage, the fear is she won't be able to go back home for at least six months to a year.
"She just needs a one bedroom or a room that has a shower and microwave and a chair," he said. "She'll be happy."
