How a Big Oak Tree Destroyed My House Part 1

Once upon a time on April 4, 2010 in Memphis, TN, I was busily teaching a four year old class while a bad thunderstorm was raging outside.  We were down in a basement of an old church, and all we could really see was the darkness created by the storm clouds.  But we could hear the lightening, which scared at least one child and disturbed the rest.  It was lunchtime.

A few minutes after lunch, as we prepared to take the children even further down into the church basement, into a room without windows, my boss came to me and said,"Your husband has been trying to call you."  I was really a little shocked because he never tried to call me during work. So I called him back.  That's when I heard that our elderly neighbors who lived beside us had heard our very large oak tree hit our house.  I began to shake.  I couldn't stay at work that day, and luckily for me, I had an assistant who could take over for me.

I drove home in the pouring rain, and when I arrived I found my husband had already made it there. There was a very big tree trunk sticking out of the side our our house.  Right at the kitchen.  Our girl cocker spaniel was outside in the rain, having gone through the kitchen doggie door, but our male cocker was still in the kitchen cowering from the devastation.  He survived, but he did have a lot of seizures following that incident.

This was taken before the crane came to remove the tree from the house. But this is the scene I saw when I arrived home that rainy April day. My neighbors said the news claimed we had straight line winds that day, but she had watched the trees behind our houses swaying in a circular motion.  So maybe this was actually caused by a tornado.

The tree stopped right at the original chimney.

The day the crane removed the tree.

This is what the back of the house looked like.  Most of the tree fell onto the back of the house.

The backyard.

The attic on the floor of the living room.

Looking from the den into the kitchen after the tree was removed. The wall to the left separated the den and the living room.  That wall eventually came down.

Believe it or not, this fireplace was in the middle of the house.

Looking from the kitchen into the den. There was a wall between the living room and the den.

This used to be my kitchen.

The right wall used to be a wall of kitchen cabinets. That is the point where the tree fell into my house.

In this picture, you see that the wall between the den and the living room has been removed.

What a large space.