The Bailey family woke Thursday morning to find the hemlock tree had uprooted from a neighboring yard, crashing through the roof of their property.
SEATTLE — A powerful windstorm swept through the Puget Sound region Wednesday night, bringing down trees and power lines across the area — including a towering hemlock that crashed through a home in Seattle’s Maple Leaf neighborhood, touching three properties on Northeast 95th Street.
The Bailey family woke Thursday morning to find the massive tree had uprooted from a neighboring yard and stretched from that home’s edge, over their own house and into a third property down the street. Their home sustained the most damage.
The destruction was visible from outside the house, where a partially collapsed ceiling could be seen through a window.
“It went through so many spots in the roof, you can see in every room up through the roof,” Glenn Bailey said.
Work crews were on scene Thursday, covering the exposed roof with a tarp to protect the interior from additional weather damage.
The home has been in the Bailey family for decades. Carol Bailey, Glenn’s wife, said this is the last thing she expected would happen.
“It was a very charming house inside.”
She and her husband had previously expressed concern about the hemlock’s structural integrity. Hemlock trees are widely regarded by arborists as having shallow, weak root systems that make them vulnerable in high winds.
“They say they aren’t very good trees — not very strong trees — their root systems are real bad,” Glenn said.
As it turns out, the storm had taken a second toll on the property.
Minutes after the first tree came crashing down Wednesday night, a second tree toppled onto the family’s back porch.
The family’s son, Jesse Bailey, said the two tough blows came on the heels of a previous disaster. In November, he returned home to find the same house on fire.
“I came home and as I walked in the front door I got greeted with a bunch of smoke and my house was on fire,” Jesse Bailey said.
The fire rendered the home a hazard, forcing Jesse out of the residence. Renovation work remained off-limits as of Thursday.
Despite the series of setbacks, the family said they are focused on what did not happen.
“It could’ve been worse,” Glenn Bailey said.
Jesse Bailey noted that on a typical evening he would have been sitting in the living room — directly beneath where the tree came down.
“I probably would’ve been in the living room right there, watching TV before I went to bed — and it would’ve come down right over my head,” he said.
Carol Bailey said the family has now survived two major incidents without anyone getting hurt.
“No one was there this time and no one was there for the fire, so that in itself is kind of a miracle,” she said.
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