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Benton residents escape harm after trees fall on home |
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Friday, 19 September 2008 |
You could say that Scott and Carla Davies are the victims of bad luck.
But the Benton couple are pretty lucky, too.
Two large oak trees connected through their root structure fell through the couple’s mobile home Sept. 3 as the couple lay in bed, virtually destroying the dwelling.
Carla Davies, though frightened and frustrated by the experience, considers the two of them fortunate. Neither was seriously hurt, which both consider nothing short of a miracle.
“I just knew we had to get out of there fast,” she said. “The trees hit the gas line and gas was spewing everywhere. My husband came and got me, but we couldn’t see each other because there was so much tree between us.
“He hollered, ‘Are you all right?,” she recalled. “I told him, ‘Yeah, but get me out of here.”
The couple were able to get out of the structure “through the wall, or rather where the wall used to be,” she said.
The only injuries were a minor bruise and a few scratches she suffered.
A few days after the incident, Benton Alderman Joe Lee Richards heard about the couple’s misfortune and gathered a group of volunteers to assist them.
“They don’t have any insurance and they need all the help they can get,” Richards said.
Richards has organized volunteers to provide similar assistance in previous years. When the efforts first started, he called the group the “Over the Hill Gang.”
‘I tried to get some of the ones together I created in 2001,” he said, “but a lot of them aren’t able to do this anymore. I made it a family affair and got one of my sons to help me and a grandson, and then some other folks helped out.
“We want to try to get them all the help we can,” Richards said.
Carla Davies said the tree debris is completely off the mobile home now, but the trailer is considered a total loss. In spite of that situation, for now the couple is continuing to live there.
“We’re living in the front part of the trailer,” she said. “We’ve got extension cords to help us get electricity and a water hose is hooked up. We’ve having to use bathroom facilities at the home of my husband’s parents, Bill and Elizabeth Grant.”
The couple are waiting on assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Human Services.
“We’ve filled our forms and are waiting to hear from them,” Carla Davies said. “We’re hanging on, but the mold and mildew in here is terrible.”
She speculated that the story could have had a different ending if they had not had a king-size bed. “The trees landed on either side of us — on his left and on my right, like a cutout,” she said.
The couple speculated that the trees fell because the ground was so saturated from days of rain generated by Hurricane Gustav.
Scott Davies is retired from military service, having flown Blackhawk helicopters, and Carla Davies also has served in the military. They have no children, but have a pet cat that was in another room when the trees fell. The cat usually sleeps on the bed with them, but didn’t that day.
Carla Davies expressed appreciation to Richards and the other volunteers who helped them in the catastrophe.
“We’re grateful for everything they did,” she said, adding: “God saved us.”
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