The Campbell Reporter
News
Mother Nature crashes full force into Campbell
By Moryt Milo
Accountant Greg Tross, a longtime employee of Delta Queen Classic Car Wash in Campbell, was by his office window. The power had gone out due to a ferocious Jan. 4 storm that had descended on the Bay Area. Tross was taking advantage of the natural light to work.
About midday he heard a strange noise, a cracking and creaking sound. That's when he looked out the window of his upper-floor Hamilton Avenue offices and saw a 40-year-old eucalyptus tree come crashing down on three parked vehicles.
Afterward he would say, "Hollywood couldn't have scripted it any better."
When the tree came down, he called to the back office, "There it goes, Julie. Come out here."
Julie Hughes quickly learned that her car was one of vehicles trapped underneath the massive tree.
Pamela Rodriguez, another longtime employee of the car wash, also heard the crash.
"I was in the building when I heard a loud noise that sounded like someone rolling up the metal doors on our truck," she said.
When she didn't see a truck, she thought the metal siding on the warehouse had been ripped off by the wind and blown away. Then she went outside and saw the felled tree and knew her car was under the trunk.
"I just stood there in shock," she said.
Minutes earlier she had returned from lunch. Another office tenant was pulling out and Rodriguez took her spot.
"I'm just grateful I didn't drive the van that day. Something told me to take the little Ford," she said.
The Ford is a 12-year-old Aspire. The family's Dodge van was purchased in 2005.
Rodiguez, who commutes from Holister said, "God was watching over me. I wasn't in the car. I could have been trapped."
Karen Stice is also counting her good fortune. The employee of Blackwell Homes said she was nervous about the tree every time there was a storm or high winds.
"That tree always dropped branches, but I never imagined the whole tree would fall down," she said.
Stice was writing paychecks manually because of the power failure. Her car had been out in the parking lot, but as soon as her employer Greg Blackwell left, she moved her car underneath the building into his spot. She drove out just before the tree came down.
Jim Lewis, a certified arborist with The Tree Master, was out there on Jan. 7 choreographing the tree's dismantling.
He said the tree had not been properly pruned and had too much "sail." It was thick with foliage on top, which can be a recipe for trouble under the right conditions. In this case saturated ground and high winds uprooted the behemoth and caused it to topple.
By mid-morning most of the limbs had been sawed off, and the air was scented with eucalyptus. The cars had been salvaged, and the damage was apparent.
Tross, who stood on the upper floor landing watching the tree cutters, said," It's just an act of nature."