I sometimes wondered what might happen if the sugar maple tree about 25' north of our house ever fell.  On the afternoon of August 2, 2015, about 4:30 we found out.  I had hoped it if and when it fell, it would fall to the north and thereby miss the house completely.  It didn't.  The storm that caused this had very high winds (over 75 mph - possibly much over) and hail along with lots of rain, lightning and thunder.  The damage could have been much worse.  We realize how lucky we were.

Two weeks ago, Tom (my bro-in-law) said he thought our deck could withstand almost anything.  It looks like he may have been right.

Joe was standing by a window on the main floor and watched the tree fall.  I was in the basement.  I had just unplugged my laptop because of the thunder and was about to go into the other bedroom to unplug the printer when I heard a very loud cracking noise that I knew was the tree.  I stopped at the doorway.  I didn't want to be in the room if glass started flying.  I was rather surprised when it didn't.  I finished the unplugging and went upstairs to find the tree on the deck.



Taken out dining room window after storm passed.  The deck is 12' wide here.



Taken from driveway showing "lack of tree."  Before the storm, this picture would have been "full of tree."



The grill and red potting sink were missed by only a few feet.



There are limbs everywhere around the deck and pathway.



Limbs down around tree trunk.



After Joe removed some of the limbs from the deck, this table and 2 chairs were found unharmed.
Some veggies in pots and other potted plants also survived.



The collapsing maple took a few limbs from a pine with it.
Picture taken from under grape arbor.



Many limbs landed on deck railing.  Others fell onto the pathway up the bank to the rear left.



The ends of several small limbs just missed hitting the living room windows.  How?  We'll never know.



A few limbs are still attached to the trunk.  This probably explains the "gentle" landing on the deck.



We lost 2 pine trees, too.  Second one is leaning against the first and is deeper in the woods.

Now to get it safely removed.  We've contacted the guy who is to do logging on the "back 40" soon but we don't know if this is within the scope of what he does.  I also asked a friend about who removed her big oak trees and Joe called them.  No one has looked at it as of Tuesday (8-4-15).  If any of the large limbs shift, they could still go into the house.