A loud snap woke the family at about 1 a.m. Friday morning, March 2. The next day, large newly cut tree stumps are piled on the side of the yard on Chesterbrook Street as Gus and Emily Panknen and her brother Jay Carlton are out gathering up debris. Carlton said, "I discovered it when I walked out the front door." Emily Panknen said, "There were three explosions in the back that directly hit three transformers." Gus Panknen said, "It sounded like the Fourth of July. It came in bursts." Emily Panknen explains it was an about 100-year-old oak tree, one of the originals that was already here when these houses were built in 1954." She says no one came out to cut up the tree until Saturday morning because they couldn't do anything until the live wires were handled.
Photo by Shirley Ruhe
A large tree fell through the roof of a house on the corner of George Mason Drive and 26th Road, splitting the roof in two.
Photo by Shirley Ruhe
Yellow caution tape blows along 36th Street, which is blocked off by an evergreen that fell across the road. The tree uprooted and ripped through the metal fence surrounding the property and took out the pole with phone and power lines.