Storm winds topple tree, destroy building in Columbia

Jun. 22--One Columbia couple woke up Saturday to quite the shock as they discovered a tree had fallen behind their house, destroying a nearby storage building and damaging the home.

The tree had fallen the night before, presumably due to strong storm winds mixed with heavy rain, which caused the ground to moisten. The house, located in the 1800 block of Susan Road in Columbia, received damage to the roof, as well as some of the side paneling and outdoor deck, which owner David Raymer and his wife, Annette, were in the process of building.

"There's a big hole in the roof up there where if you pull the shingles back, you can stick your head through," David Raymer said. "It was a pretty nice one apparently, totally destroyed the building back here."

He said nobody was home at the time, that he and his wife were out with friends in Mt. Pleasant until the storms subsided Friday evening. They didn't discover the fallen tree until the next morning when David went out to work on the deck.

"We came home last night and went to bed, thinking nothing about it. The next morning I came to check on things, and I told my wife, 'You might want to get out of bed. You need to get up and look at this,'" David said. "The insurance company has been notified, and they said they'd have someone out here Monday to get estimates."

Fridays storms brought winds of up to 80 mph, according to the National Weather Service, causing several power outages, wrecks and structural damages throughout the region. Columbia Fire & Rescue Chief Ty Cobb said at one point his crews were dispatched to provide mutual aid to another house in Mt. Pleasant where a tree had fallen.

No injuries or deaths were reported due to the storms, but two houses in Columbia were reported to have been struck by lightning, Cobb said.

"Overall, we were very busy, but from our side, we were very lucky especially with those high straight line winds that came through Maury County on Friday," Cobb said. "Everybody came in during the period of storms to make sure we had an adequate amount of people in case we had a large call volume, which we did. We were prepared for it, knew the storms were coming, but they turned out to be a lot stronger than we predicted."

Cobb also commended Columbia Power and Water Systems, who had crews out all night to restore power due to outages.

"I have to give credit to CPWS, because they were out all night long. We had power out in several places around the city, and they were on it," Cobb said. "All of my staff came in and we were able to answer a lot of calls in a short amount of time. It's fortunate we didn't have any injuries, major damages or deaths. There was some damage, but nothing we would consider catastrophic."

The Raymers are grateful that no one was hurt, and that damages to the house could have been much worse, but they say the situation is still frustrating. This is mostly because all they can do right now is wait for the insurance company to inspect the damages, and hopefully find a solution to repair the house. How long that will take remains uncertain.

The storage building behind the house, which now sits crumbled in pieces, contained the Raymers' lawnmower, as well as a high grade grill, smoker and other home improvement equipment, all of which was crushed and destroyed under the tree's weight.

"You can tell where it damaged the house on the side, and it destroyed our building and everything in it. And of course it happens when our grass needs mowing," Annette said. "I think part of the building and the deck, for lack of better words, 'cushioned' the fall and caused less damage than it could have. It's just wild how it uprooted the tree like that."

How the tree will be removed from the property is still a mystery to the Raymers. Right now, it's all about waiting to see what the insurance company says, how much they will cover and how long the process will take. There is also the question of, in the end, how much will be left in the Raymers' hands to pick up?

"It is what it is, and I'm just glad nobody got hurt," David said. "I'm hoping the insurance company pays to help take away all of this stuff. I just don't know because I've never had to deal with something like this before. It could have been a lot worse than what it is."

The National Weather Service predicts more storms to hit Maury County throughout Sunday and Monday, with slight chances of precipitation Tuesday and Wednesday.

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