Two toppled trees tear apart DRW home

Last Monday’s windstorm sent two trees crashing into a home in Deschutes River Woods, fortunately causing no injuries, but leaving the three renters without a place to live.

Trina Towner, one of the renters, says she was home alone when she heard the trees crash into the house.

“It felt like an earthquake, like I was in a hurricane — just nothing believable,” Towner said Sunday. “I didn’t think that a tree had fallen on our house.”

In just a few seconds, half the house was destroyed.

Towner was luckily on the opposite side of the home, which kept her from being hurt.

Now Towner and her two roommates have the task of looking for a new home.

“It was these two trees right here, the bigger one, and then the thin one,” Towner said, looking up at the two trees that caused all the damage. “If you see clear up to the top, it busted off. I’m pretty sure that probably about 50, maybe 100 feet of a tree fell into our house.”

Nearly a week later, from the backyard the damage is still very evident.

“The tree pierced down through here,” Towner said, pointing to a tarp covering the damage. “You can tell it busted off through here and our yard’s shed, shifted off the deck of the house.”

Inside the kitchen, a tree branch hangs above the sink.

“Here’s our kitchen, where a branch came right through the ceiling,” Towner said. “Obviously, if I was doing dishes, there could have been more damage.”

And in a bedroom, still more damage is clear to see.

“This room is our roommate’s room,” Towner said. “As you can see, the tree pierced through the window, through the ceiling — and you can just imagine like this is breaking.”

Towner, who lives with her girlfriend, another roommate and three cats, was home from a day off work.

“This is the bathroom — our bathroom, where I was,” Towner said “I was just going to the bathroom, and right over here on the other side of this wall is where the branch came through our roommate’s ceiling. It was crazy.”

Towner had been worried about trees falling, but never imagined something like this happening.

“(The) tree pierced the tub and our roommate’s bathroom,” Towner said. “So if she was here taking a bath, we would be at a funeral.”

The three women are glad everybody, including their cats, are okay, but now they have begun the search for a new home.

“We all work, we all have a routine — but we just don’t have a place to stay,” Towner said.

For now the Red Cross is paying for the women to stay in a hotel.

“They really helped out a lot, relieved a little bit of stress off of us, but still, it’s been a rough week,” Towner said.

The women will be staying at the hotel until Monday — and after that, they say it’s up in the air.

“We have a list of churches that we are going to call to see if we can get some help through them,” Towner said.

The garage next to the home was not damaged, so the women can store their things there for now.

If you know of a place the three women can stay, or would like to help them out in any way, you can contact Trina Towner at 503-269-7925.