DECATUR, Ga. — With strong winds expected from the storm, many homeowners are worried about trees falling on their homes.
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Channel 2’s Michael Seiden spoke with a woman who knows the danger firsthand.
Every time strong winds move through, Kitty Magerko thinks about what happened back in 2023.
“The lights went out and I heard water and my roommate was there. And I was like, she yelled, ‘Are you OK?’” she said.
Her neighbor’s tree came crashing into her home.
“And I was like, ‘What’s that sound?’ And it was just water coming in from everywhere,” she said.
That frightening memory is still fresh. And with another storm approaching, she’s not taking any chances.
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“We had our trees checked luckily this past week, so we don’t have to worry about those or our neighbors,” Magerko said.
Just down the street, crews are tackling a different tree emergency.
A massive poplar tree, damaged by lightning, is being removed piece by piece.
“We’ve got a giant poplar that was blown apart by lightning. It’s got so many splits and cracks in it that we don’t feel safe putting a man in it,” Bob Coombs of Tomahawk Tree Service said.
He says when strong winds arrive, it’s not just entire trees that can come down.
“You’re going to see not only trees break and have a catastrophic failure of the base, you’re going to see trees sort of fall apart, too.”
And for Magerko, that’s why preparing ahead of time matters.
“I definitely think about it every time the winds come through,” she said.
And Magerko said she’s also stocking up on groceries, ice and emergency lighting.
She says just a couple of weeks ago, a tree fell in this neighborhood and damaged a power line, leaving some homes without electricity more than 12 hours. That’s another reason she’s getting ready now.
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