With Irene headed this way, a question: If a tree falls on your house, how likely is it to actually squash you?
I know that you need to finish your preparations before the storm comes and then stay the hell inside. I hear about people getting squished when they go to move their car or something. But how often do people die in their beds from trees that come clear through the roof?
(One-story ranch house with attic, roof in good shape. The trees around us are all tall, skinny southern slash pine things. We aren’t under an evacuation order, and we have a lot of animals and nowhere to go so we’d rather… not.)
Plug your ears. If you can’t hear it, it can’t make a squashing sound.
ETA: Oh, this is GQ… If/when it starts to get really bad, you should considering staying somewhere in the middle of the house, away from windows. If it really hits the fan, standing in a door frame or getting in the bathtub would be a good idea.
To squash you directly, it would have to break through the ceiling and the walls…most of the pictures I can think of from trees hitting houses were more the laying on the roof doing some damage type.
That’s not to say it can’t happen…or that it can’t cause the roof to cave in, or parts of something else to fall on you.
It’s pretty rare for a person inside a house to be squished by a tree. If you Google “killed by falling tree,” almost every example falls into one of three categories:
[ul]Motorist or motorcyclist[/ul][ul]Person camping outside (usually in a tent)[/ul][ul]Logger or person actively cutting down the tree[/ul]
That said a 10-year old girl in Pennsylvania was killed in her bed this morning when a tree fell on her house. But as far as probabilities go, it’s way down on the list of things to worry about.
I live close to the coast in Virginia and the area has numerous pines. As you may know, pines have a deep taproot and a healthy pine will seldom uproot and topple during a windstorm because the taproot serves as a powerful anchor. However, the force of the wind can push a pine beyond its breaking point and when this occurs, the tree can snap somewhere along the main trunk and come crashing to the ground. Pines can be quite dangerous depending upon the angle it takes when first hitting a structure and I have seen some limbs enter a building much like a spear.
I can’t answer your question about how likely it may be that you’ll be injured but in a one story ranch, the safest areas are probably the main hall, hall closet or bathroom (bathroom would be my last choice if it has a window). This is because you want to have as much structure (wall and ceiling framing) around you as possible to absorb the force of the tree before it can get to you.
Gah. So close to being comforting, and then it all went pear-shaped… Mods, title change to “STABBED by a Tree”?
I appreciate all of the advice as to the safest rooms in the house, but my house was designed with no rooms that don’t have major flaws for storm safety. But on that note, are skylights just as bad as a window? They are sturdy-looking skylights with thick, convex glass. The master bathroom might be okay if not for the skylight.
Also, does anyone want to take a STAB at the windspeeds necessary to cause trees to snap and become projectiles with any regularity? Especially those “coastal virginia” pine trees, since my location is also such and I suspect those are exactly the trees I mean. I understand that hurricanes can spawn tornadoes, but that’s not really what I’m after… if the sustained winds are going to be snapping trees left and right we’re out of here, but we can dodge the occasional freak treespear.
Aaaaand as I type this, we’re officially under a hurricane warning! Wooo!
very few people are injured/killed in their house by falling trees. But be aware that pines are notorious for breaking in storms. And if your house is hit by a tree, don’t plan on living there for a awhile.
In my opinion, I went through Katrina, the best piece of storm supply you can buy is a very large piece of plastic, roofing nails and maybe some 1x4 wooden strips. Get them now before the rush. Even if your house isn’t hit by a tree, shingle damage might cause leaks. A temporary patch on the roof could save you weeks of repair inside.
A more common result is for a tree to fall on the roof and put a hole in the roof without the trunk actually penetrating. This can be very damaging in a hurricane due to the heavy rains which will now be pouring unimpeded into your home.
You’ll probably be okay in the bathroom but in a ranch style home, you should have a main hall running along the length of the home. Most likely, the long hall walls are load bearing and should be sturdy. You’ll also have more room to move around and with pets, that might be a good idea so I’m going to vote once again on the hall as the safest area.
Several years ago a 200 foot Douglas Fir (about two and a half feet in diameter at the base) came down on a neighbor’s house. The tree originally stood about ten feet from the house. The tree cut the house in two down (to the foundation) like a knife through butter.
The house was rebuilt and I think they had several years of free firewood.
A tornado came through north Minneapolis last May, and 1 person was killed by a tree falling on his van, fracturing his skull. Fits in that first category.
(At least one other person died later, from a heart attack while trying to clean up fallen trees. But I don’t consider that “killed by falling tree”.)
In 1968 I lived in a house in Nuuanu and there was a huge monkeypod tree growing in the front yard. It had three main limbs. One of the limbs had fallen and crushed the garage. One of the limbs was over the front yard. The third limb was over my bedroom.
Luckily, The U.S. Army drafted me and sent me to Viet Nam. I felt much safer.
