Those life changing moments? Well, mine was January 23, 2007, when I came very close to getting killed by a falling tree...
It all began...
On January 23, 2007, a big oak that's probably been growing for 300+ years in Dry Creek Valley decided to come down. It had shaded the back of the house we'd lived in since 1990--already big when the place was built around 1910--merely losing the occasional limb or small branch over the years. The fact it had stayed up through a huge windstorm a week before the 23rd is amazing, since the day it fell was clear, still, and about sixty degrees. I guess that didn't matter, or maybe it just had to be the right time.
Doug and I were moving the last of our furniture out of the house we'd lived in for the past sixteen years--he was in Jon's old room loading a cabinet onto a dolly and I was standing beside his truck, taping drawers shut on a desk we'd loaded when I heard a loud crack. Luckily I recognized it immediately as a VERY BAD THING and took off running without waiting to think the action through. I knew it was the oak tree, possibly a limb breaking, and figured that if I could get as far as the hallway I'd be beyond anything that fell.
I made it to the kitchen, where the ceiling came down on me. I could still hear the horrible noise of the tree falling behind me--it was obviously a lot more than just one limb--but there was insulation flying all around and big chunks of plaster landing on me. I felt like one of those characters in a video game trying to outrun an explosion, but at least I got beyond the larger branches.
Doug came running and got to me about the time the crashing stopped. We went outside to survey the damage, and I realized just how close I'd come to getting myself killed. Not only had the entire tree fallen, a huge limb had come down right where I'd been standing. That limb crushed Doug's big pickup, essentially breaking it in half, and another badly damaged my car. It was a very immediate lesson in how quickly everything can change, and the closest I've ever come to getting killed.
The odds of this happening with both of us there makes me shudder. We'd bought a house up in the mountains in the little town of Cobb, and had been living there most of the time for the past few months. Doug was still working in Dry Creek Valley--commuting up and down the mountain each day--but we'd been making trips to empty more of our belongings out of the house. Rarely were we both there at the same time. A few minutes before the tree fell, Doug had been sitting on the tailgate of his truck eating a sandwich, and I was leaning against the hood of my car, eating sushi! We were damned lucky things turned out the way they did, but knowing what could have so easily happened has had a major impact on how I view the world. I think it's changed my writing. I know it's changed the way I feel about walking through the woods, surrounded by big trees!
My thanks to our daughter Sarah for taking pictures of the damage. Wouldn't you know it, neither Doug nor I had a camera with us that day!
On January 23, 2007, a big oak that's probably been growing for 300+ years in Dry Creek Valley decided to come down. It had shaded the back of the house we'd lived in since 1990--already big when the place was built around 1910--merely losing the occasional limb or small branch over the years. The fact it had stayed up through a huge windstorm a week before the 23rd is amazing, since the day it fell was clear, still, and about sixty degrees. I guess that didn't matter, or maybe it just had to be the right time.
Doug and I were moving the last of our furniture out of the house we'd lived in for the past sixteen years--he was in Jon's old room loading a cabinet onto a dolly and I was standing beside his truck, taping drawers shut on a desk we'd loaded when I heard a loud crack. Luckily I recognized it immediately as a VERY BAD THING and took off running without waiting to think the action through. I knew it was the oak tree, possibly a limb breaking, and figured that if I could get as far as the hallway I'd be beyond anything that fell.
I made it to the kitchen, where the ceiling came down on me. I could still hear the horrible noise of the tree falling behind me--it was obviously a lot more than just one limb--but there was insulation flying all around and big chunks of plaster landing on me. I felt like one of those characters in a video game trying to outrun an explosion, but at least I got beyond the larger branches.
Doug came running and got to me about the time the crashing stopped. We went outside to survey the damage, and I realized just how close I'd come to getting myself killed. Not only had the entire tree fallen, a huge limb had come down right where I'd been standing. That limb crushed Doug's big pickup, essentially breaking it in half, and another badly damaged my car. It was a very immediate lesson in how quickly everything can change, and the closest I've ever come to getting killed.
The odds of this happening with both of us there makes me shudder. We'd bought a house up in the mountains in the little town of Cobb, and had been living there most of the time for the past few months. Doug was still working in Dry Creek Valley--commuting up and down the mountain each day--but we'd been making trips to empty more of our belongings out of the house. Rarely were we both there at the same time. A few minutes before the tree fell, Doug had been sitting on the tailgate of his truck eating a sandwich, and I was leaning against the hood of my car, eating sushi! We were damned lucky things turned out the way they did, but knowing what could have so easily happened has had a major impact on how I view the world. I think it's changed my writing. I know it's changed the way I feel about walking through the woods, surrounded by big trees!
My thanks to our daughter Sarah for taking pictures of the damage. Wouldn't you know it, neither Doug nor I had a camera with us that day!
This was Doug's pickup--I was standing on the other side of the bed
when it happened.
My little Nissan doesn't look too bad from the back. I had driven in not ten minutes before the tree fell. The picture after this next one still makes me queasy!
That's inside the front seat of my car. One of the branches came right through the steering wheel. Too close for comfort.
I was directly under that hole in the kitchen ceiling when the tree came down--I stopped and screamed, mainly because I couldn't see anything. It was like being in a snow globe, but instead of white crystals, there was a gray cloud of insulation swirling around my head, and the sound of branches breaking through the house and crushing our cars was horrible. Doug came running, but he stopped in the doorway (stuff was still falling) held out his hand and said, "Come here, honey!" I remember looking up at him and thinking, you just flunked hero, you S.O.B. You're supposed to RESCUE me!
It was almost beyond comprehension when we stepped outside. We thought at first that only the one big branch over the house had fallen, but then we had to climb over branches to get out the door. The whole tree was on its side. It had twisted as it fell, and huge branches were everywhere. What was really wild is that it snapped off at the ground, and where the roots should have been, there were tunnels underground. The wood had rotted away.
Doug had his cell phone and called our insurance company. Both our cars were destroyed and we were ten miles from town. When he told the lady who answered what had happened, she said, "Oh. I am so sorry!" And he laughed and said that no, he was sorry because her company had just bought two mangled cars. The insurance adjuster deemed both of them beyond repair. Doug's truck was almost broken in half.
Clean-up was a massive job. Luckily, we had the house in Cobb so we could just walk away from this mess, but it took days to clear the debris. They needed a 70 ton crane to lift the tree off the roof, and that's after cutting off most of the branches.
It was such a beautiful little house on Dry Creek Road, just a mile from Lake Sonoma, but we had lost a huge oak on the north side of the house a couple of years earlier, and then this one. It looked absolutely desolate when we moved the last of our things out, but we'd lived there quite happily for sixteen years. This is the way I like to remember it, when both oaks were still standing. The big one center/left probably died from sudden oak death disease. It was even bigger than the one that fell, which is the big, dark green tree on the right.
That's the dam at Lake Sonoma in the background.
