COLDBROOK, N.S. — When Dorian’s winds powered through Kings County, Lisa Hunt and her husband Ray were more worried about the maple tree in their front lawn.
It was quickly shedding branches in the violent winds whipping around their Coldbrook home.
Moving their vehicles out of the driveway, and feeling satisfied that they had averted a crisis, the last thing they expected was for one of the poplars in the backyard to topple over and slam into their roof.
“It was absolutely terrifying. Our oldest, he’s four years old, and our baby were napping. We were thinking ‘Holy! Glad we moved those,’ after moving the vehicles out of the driveway,” Hunt said. “Not seconds later, we heard the loudest bang and both of us stood up off the couch.”
The house rattled.
Their ears vibrated with a sounded that could be mistaken for a truck driving into the back of their home.
After the initial shock wore off, they checked their backyard, where several large poplars towered over the house – and sure enough, one rested squarely on the roof.
“There it was, a 70-foot-tall tree laying on top of the roof. It was pretty terrifying. We just stood there in awe,” Hunt said. “There was nothing we could do.”
With two more right beside the one that had fallen, Hunt said they spent the rest of the day expecting to see another come down as the fierce wind persisted for hours. Although the other poplars were uprooted by the storm, they remained standing.
“They’re all getting cut down at the end of the month. We’re not dealing with this anymore – these tall trees,” Hunt said with a laugh. “Everything calmed down around suppertime.”
Just when they thought they were out of the woods, so to speak, Hunt said their worries were renewed when the winds switched direction.
“We thought, ‘uh-oh, here it comes,’ thinking it would hit the other side of the house or come down on the trailer in the driveway,” she said.
That, to their immense relief, was not the case.
PREPARATION
The fallen tree was a shock, especially after the extensive planning they did anticipating Dorian’s fury.
“We cleaned out the fridge, got lanterns and flashlights out, and filled the tub with water prior to the storm,” Hunt said. “We had our phones charged and even had a generator so the food in the fridge would be OK.
“But I would have bet money that we wouldn’t have a tree fall on our house.”
Hunt said their home had an unfortunate distinction among their neighbours – the only home on the street to get hit by an entire tree.
“We kept joking the hurricane hit two places in Nova Scotia – Halifax and our house,” Hunt said.
Another shocking fact about the impact was what little it did to the house, despite falling on it.
After a quick check, Hunt said her husband found nothing damaged but the eavestrough There was no structural damage to the house.
“The first thing we did the next day after we got up was to get it off the house,” Hunt said, noting it was a simple process of trimming off the branches, using a chainsaw to cut a wedge to stick into the ground and then kicking it off the roof.
“I couldn’t fathom leaving a tree on top of the house,” Hunt said.
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