OAKLAND (KRON) — In the East Bay, people are still dealing with the aftermath of Friday’s storm.
In Oakland, a huge cypress tree snapped and fell into a home barely missing the owners.
KRON4’s Hermela Aregawi spoke to the family on Friday night.
Crews left before 8 p.m., as it became entirely too dark to work. The tree is mostly gone now, but for the family, this mess is far from over.
The homeowners tell KRON4 it will be weeks, maybe even months before the damage is fully repaired.
About a dozen people were out there for hours Friday removing the tree bit by bit.
The 110-foot cypress tree snapped around 8:30 p.m. Thursday night during the storm. It fell into the home, breaking glass and leaving a gaping hole in the roof.F
For now, a tarp is covering that hole to prevent any water or debris from getting inside.
This all happened while the people that live there were inside. The homeowner describes the moments the tree came crashing down.
“Boom! It was like an explosion,” homeowner Tolbert Small said. “I looked up, the ceiling fell in. Boom! The mirror was broken. Boom! The roof is solid redwood 2-by-4’s going across. I suspect that’s why our house wasn’t wiped out. So you never mess with Mother Nature. We live out here in the woods but the woods own us. We don’t own the woods.”
The homeowners are taking it with grace and say they’re taking it easy because all that matters to them is that no one was hurt.
The repair is quite costly, though. It costs about $13,000 to remove the tree alone.
The homeowners tell KRON4 they suspect it will cost tens of thousands more to fix the roof and the other damage to the home.
But they do have insurance so most of that will be covered.