JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Northside Jacksonville woman says she is lucky to be alive after she said a neighbor’s tree crashed through her home Saturday during powerful weekend storms.
Pamela Randall says she is normally in her bedroom around 5 p.m. — right around the time the storm struck — but says she felt compelled to stay put and finish watching a movie.
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“God told me to stay here, finish watching my movie,” Randall said.
When the storm hit, she was finishing a movie and then the tree came crashing through. She was in a panic.
“I was on the porch, and I was soaking wet. I was screaming. I was screaming’, and nobody heard me,” she said.
The tree came crashing through her bedroom window and her living room. She says normally she would have been in her bed where the tree hit. Tree branches are through her roof and on her bed.
“My bed is destroyed,” she said. “There’s a tree over there, and like I said, I normally be in my bedroom around 5, and this happened between 5, between 6, and 6.30.”
Randall says the tree didn’t come from her own yard.
“I have no trees on my property. I’m terrified of trees,” she said. “But at the end of the day, God got me.”
The experience has left her shaken — emotionally and physically.
“Emotional, stressed and drained, and I cried for two days,” Randall said. “I didn’t sleep for two days. I finally got some rest last night.”
Still, she says her faith carried her through.
“A lot of people didn’t wake up Sunday morning,” Randall said. “He had his angels all over me.”
We spoke with a roofing contractor with Danztler Group as they were evaluating the roof. Bryan Widmayer explained what could have caused a tree like this to fall under the circumstances.
“One of the limbs essentially gets a ton of water inside of it and then when that sheer wind comes it just snaps in half and then results in what you see here.”
He says people should be getting their trees inspected every year, especially big ones like Live Oaks.