No one hurt in downed tree event: Woodley&Newcastle Aves Silver Spring #WTOP pic.twitter.com/0ImLKRYjMW
— Kristi King (@kingWTOP) February 3, 2015Dog in home very alarmed by crash. Damaged room recently renovated #WTOP pic.twitter.com/Ptpv7Uurqh
— Kristi King (@kingWTOP) February 3, 2015Wind victim: Silver Spring. Man on phone to 911 when listing tree crashed into home #WTOP pic.twitter.com/Ue2JyBQkzo
— Kristi King (@kingWTOP) February 3, 2015
WASHINGTON — A Montgomery County man was on the phone with a 911 dispatcher when he watched a huge tree fall onto his house because of high winds Monday night.
Chris and Molly Fisher are displaced from their home along Woodley Avenue near Newcastle Avenue in Silver Spring, Maryland, after high winds blew down a 75-foot-tall tree in their front yard at about 7 p.m.
Chris said he heard a tree limb fall in the yard, walked outside to check the tree and saw it tilting at a nearly 45-degrees angle. That’s when he called 911.
Chris says he stood at the front window as he watched the tree smash into the left side of his home.
“It sounded like a car crash,” he said.
Chris says the dispatcher repeatedly told him to leave the house, but the tree was blocking the front door. He ran out the back with the dog, Dutch, who was rattled by the experience.
Also, the tree caught fire when it hit the power lines on the neighbor’s house, Chris said.
No one was hurt.
There was a wind advisory in the region Monday until midnight where gusts of wind reached up to 50 mph.
“He had called me and said that it was windy and I thought that he was over-exaggerating the situation, but clearly he wasn’t,” said Chris’ wife, Molly, who was not home at the time the tree crashed into the house. She came home to see the damage the tree had done to the property.
The tree that fell on the house had recently been OK’d by an arborist who visited the home the couple purchased about two years ago. The Fishers say since they purchased the house, they have spent about $65,000 on renovations — including upgrades to the room impacted by the tree.
“So now we have to get it all fixed after we fixed it up when we first bought it,” Chris said.
They were allowed back in the house for one hour Monday night to grab some personal items and clothes, but will have to wait until a structural engineer gives them the all clear to re-enter the house.
The estimated cost of damaged caused by the tree has not yet been released.
WTOP’s Kristi King contributed to this report.
