Friday, June 20, 2003
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Friday, June 20, 2003 |
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Man unhurt after big tree falls on his truck By JOHN
MUNFORD
A Duluth man miraculously escaped injury when an estimated 150-year-old oak tree fell on his work truck at a home off Banks Road in Fayetteville Wednesday morning. Mathew Desautels said he didn't even see the tree falling, but he felt and heard the crash as it landed on top of his vehicle. "I was waiting in my truck and the first thing I knew I just felt it," Desautels said. "It shook me up quite a bit." He exited through the truck's back window, which was shattered when the tree hit. He ran out to check on his co-worker Randy Findley, who was also unhurt. Desautels had a headache Wednesday afternoon, but that was the extent of his injuries. He felt fortunate to have survived the incident. "He definitely wants me to continue doing electrical work," Desautels said. "I just thank God you want to talk about scary." Desautels had been waiting for his boss to deliver equipment for electrical work that needed to be done to the house. The tree also missed the home of Bobby and Joyce Nipper, landing near the front porch. Paula Wilcox, the Nippers' daughter, said the home was built in 1876 and was bought by her grandparents Effie and Raymond Banks in 1946. "This is the old homestead," Wilcox said. Wilcox said she thought the tree's roots were undermined by all the rain the area has received after having two years of a dry spell. "I think the roots just got washed out," she said. Heavy rains this week were also to blame for undermining the support structure for the bridge across Flat Creek in the Smoke Rise neighborhood in north Peachtree City. The bridge is closed until further notice while city work crews replace it, meaning residents of the pricey neighborhood will be cut off from each other for an undetermined number of days. Smoke Rise can be accessed from both Peachtree Parkway and Swanson Road, off Ga. Hwy. 54, so no residents will be completely cut off. Peachtree City Mayor Steve Brown said the same type erosion that caused the bridge to lose its support is also causing the banks of creeks and streams throughout the city to collapse. Beyond the obvious frustration that brings, he said, is the possibility that much of the silt from the erosion upstream is settling again in Lake Peachtree, which just went through a dredging project. "We've already pulled the barge (used for dredging) out of the water, but I dare say we had quite a bit of that silt go back in the lake," Brown said.
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