A miraculous miss
Photos: DEVIN WEEKS/Press Carla Jamele on Saturday afternoon discusses how the evergreen tree that was in her front yard snapped during Friday night’s windstorm and missed her neighbor’s vehicle by just a couple feet when it fell in her downtown Coeur d’Alene neighborhood. The roughly 70-year-old, 100-foot tree also managed to miss a nearby fence and only struck Jamele’s mailbox post, avoiding injuries or property damage. What’s left of the tree is to the right of Jamele in the background.
A roughly 100-foot, 70-year-old evergreen tree on Carla Jamele’s property on the 1600 block of Coeur d’Alene Avenue in Coeur d’Alene came crashing down during the heavy winds Friday night, barely missing her neighbor’s car and fence. No one was injured. “A Christmas miracle, if you ask me,” Jamele said. What’s left of the tree can be seen here on the right.
COEUR d’ALENE — A roughly 100-foot-tall, 70-year-old evergreen tree snapped in the wind Friday night and fell on the 1600 block of Coeur d'Alene Avenue.
No one was injured, no cars or property were damaged and the only thing that suffered was Carla Jamele's mailbox post.
"I heard a noise and then a thump," Jamele said Saturday afternoon, adding that the she could feel the ground shudder under her feet when the tree fell into the street.
"I nonchalantly walked out," she said. "I went ‘Oh my gosh, what did it hit?’ And it didn't hit anything."
The tree missed a neighbor's car by about two feet and narrowly missed a fence. Jamele, from whose yard the tree toppled, feels the miraculous miss was a divine gift.
"When I walked out and I saw that, I was shocked, but then I went, 'Thank you God, for protecting my house,' because if it went that way, you could see exactly where it would have went, on my roof and on my double fence,” she said, gesturing toward the back of her house. "A Christmas miracle, if you ask me."
She said it was amazing that no one was driving on the moderately busy road at the time the tree fell.
"Somebody's car could have gotten smashed," she said. "They could have been underneath the tree at that one minute and no one was here. Thank you, Jesus."
About a quarter of the tree is still standing in Jamele's yard and another 100-foot evergreen stands on the other side of her house. She's concerned she will have to take the other tree down to prevent it from falling too, but she's boggled the first tree fell given that it was healthy and she didn't feel the winds were that strong.
"It scares the dickens out of me now that that one might go," she said. "Again, the wind was not that bad. It was howling a little."
According to the Weather Underground website, winds on Friday night ranged between 10 and 20 mph in Coeur d’Alene, with gusts reaching 29 mph.
City workers were to Jamele's house by about 10 p.m. to cut up the tree and prepare it for removal.
"I'm super blessed it happened this way," Jamele said. "I would want the paper to allow that comment: God protects his faithful followers."