A 100-foot tree smashed a Sacramento family’s home. How will they pay for the damage?

More than two weeks have passed since a 100-foot cedar tree smashed through the roof of Molly O’Keefe and Hunter Parnell’s Curtis Park home. The couple still doesn’t know the full extent of the destruction or how much the repairs might eventually cost, despite their $2,500 deductible for wind damage.

“It’s been really frustrating and disheartening,” said Parnell, 33, who works in patient services at Sutter Health’s midtown emergency room. “It was a big hassle getting insurance to just contact us.”

O’Keefe, a Caltrans engineer, said the couple’s modest savings won’t last much longer without help from their insurance. They already shelled out more than $15,000 for the tree removal — and they still need to pay their contractor. They estimate repairs could easily take six to eight months. Thankfully, O’Keefe’s parents live in Arden-Arcade and have room for them to stay.

The same night that the cedar took out O’Keefe and Parnell’s roof, another tree in New Era Park crushed Victoria Atencio’s 2007 Nissan Versa. Atencio, 26, who recently moved to Sacramento, is living on her own for the first time and relied on the car to get to work in Stockton.

“It wasn’t super special or anything, but it got the job done,” Atencio said. “I’m fortunate that it’s just a car, you know.”

But with almost $32,000 in estimated damage, the Nissan is likely a total loss. Atencio, who works in human services for San Joaquin County, has no savings and doesn’t know how she’ll get a new car.

For many Sacramentans, sunny skies and warmer temperatures can ease memories of the deadly storms that pummeled California and caused an estimated $1 billion in damage.

Others don’t have the luxury of forgetting so quickly. Even those who don’t live on the economic edge face years of recovery as they grapple with how to repair homes, cars and communities.

Those who survived more or less intact have been left battered in different ways. Every October for the last 20 years, Loren Alander’s elaborate holiday light displays with animatronic reindeer, dogs and bears have brought cheer to his neighbors on Ferndale Circle in West Sacramento.

On New Year’s Eve, the winds ripped his beloved reindeer from the roof, strewed Santas across the yard and shattered thousands of twinkling lights.

Alander, 65, said the New Year’s Eve storm destroyed nearly 40% of his decorations.

“A lot of the stuff we have is 20-30 years old and you can’t even find it anymore,” he aid.

FALLING TREES

Parnell was keeping a close watch on the cedar, worried about the high winds. The couple wanted to get rid of it in 2021, but under city ordinance, its 32-inch trunk diameter made it too large for removal.

Around midnight on Jan. 7, as they lay wide awake in bed listening to the wailing wind, the floor began to rumble as if a low-flying military jet just zoomed over their house. Their two Britney spaniels, Watson and Winslow, on high alert all night, sat straight up with wide eyes and perked ears, trembling.

A symphony of snaps and cracks erupted – the sound of roots parting ways with the rain-soaked ground.

“Oh gosh, it’s happening,” O’Keefe remembers thinking.

Seconds later, BOOM!

The whole house shuddered as the tree pierced the roof.

O’Keefe sprang out of bed and dashed across the hall. She caught a glimpse of the tree dangling through the living room ceiling as she raced into the guest room. Not even 20 feet away from the new gashes in the living room ceiling, her niece and nephew lay sleeping.

“We were super scared,” Parnell said. “We thought, ‘Did it fall on them?’”

The crash hadn’t woken them. Instead, they were roused O’Keefe’s frantic calls of, “Are you OK? Are you OK?”

The children, ages 4 and 7, wanted to immediately dash into the living room to inspect the scraggly branches. O’Keefe held them back.

“We could hear it creaking,” O’Keefe said. “We weren’t sure if it was going to come down any further.”

They concluded that exiting the front door was not safe. If they went out back, they would have to jump a fence to where the cars were parked. That left one option.

Like ninjas, they popped out the guest room window and escaped into the pouring rain.

“The kids thought that was awesome,” O’Keefe said. “They tell all their friends about it.”

Escaping the house was only half the challenge. Where would they go? Neighbors had texted offering them shelter for the night, but with two young kids and two freaked out dogs, O’Keefe’s parents’ house in Arden-Arcade seemed easier.

The drive was harrowing. Power outages had rendered the entire city dark. For almost 30 minutes, the wind battered Parnell’s truck as they navigated road closures, flooding streets and downed trees. After safely arriving at her parents’ house, O’Keefe and Parnell stayed up past 1 a.m. and filed an insurance claim before going to bed.

“It was pretty wild,” she said. “I’ve never experienced anything like that.”

The same evening, across town in New Era Park, Atencio had decided to take her chances. She couldn’t find a parking spot that wasn’t underneath a tree, so as she went to bed she crossed her fingers that the one next to her car would stay in the ground. It didn’t sound promising outside.

“Sacramento winds are different,” said Atencio, who moved from Stockton to the city of trees in November. “You can hear them.”

About 10 minutes after turning out the lights, she heard a loud crash. Under the tree she had prayed over was her little white Nissan. She went out to snap a few pictures, took a deep breath, and returned to bed. She would deal with it in the morning, she decided.

SIZING UP DAMAGE

Daylight revealed the right side of the car crumpled under the trunk’s weight, water leaking through the shattered windows. She covered it as best she could with a tarp and figured that was all she could do until city crews arrived and removed it.

“I’m fortunate that it’s just a car,” she said.

Also that morning, O’Keefe and Parnell returned to their home of seven years – the first that they’ve owned together – to size up the damage.

The crushed roof cradled the downed cedar, which arched over the garage and dangled into the neighbor’s backyard. Outside their front door sat a jumbled mess of bricks and broken gutter. The chimney looked like a Jenga tower teetering dangerously on the edge of the house.

Inside, the living room floors sloped in ways they never imagined possible. Pieces of the ceiling and fiberglass shavings covered everything, even Watson and Winslow’s toys.

“We’ve got some nice new skylights,” O’Keefe said, laughing. Parnell placed a kiddie pool and a tarp on the floor to catch the leaks dripping in.

Tree removal took another day.

“I made probably a dozen phone calls to different tree service companies in order to get this thing off the roof,” Parnell said. One of the two who responded quoted him $50,000. After a few more calls, they found a company that would remove it for $15,500.

Once the tree was gone, a neighbor’s contractor helped them tarp up the gaping hole in the roof and temporarily secure the chimney.

They waited 10 more days before an insurance adjuster came to appraise the property. He took photos for 15 minutes and told O’Keefe he would let her know if the company wanted to send a structural specialist for further damage estimates.

“He didn’t even take any measurements,” O’Keefe said. The adjuster gave no deadline for when the couple could expect to hear back.

“It’s definitely frustrating because it took so long for them to come out.”

HOW TO AFFORD REPAIRS?

Atencio waited four days for a tree removal crew to free her car. In the interim, she tried to figure out how she would replace it if it were deemed a total loss.

“I really don’t like having to ask for help,” she wrote in the description of a GoFundMe that she posted the day after the tree fell. “I just don’t know what else to do.”

She watched as passersby stopped to take photos and videos of her crushed car. It felt like they were giggling to themselves, “Oh my, I’m so glad that’s not me,’” she said.

Finally, Atencio taped a sign inside the driver’s side window with her Venmo handle and a little message:

“If you’re reading this, the owner needs a drink!!!”

She didn’t expect much in terms of donations, but to date she’s raised almost $500 dollars through Venmo and $1,680 from GoFundMe. She has no additional savings, and this is the most money she has had at one time for quite a while. But paired with the payout from her totaled-out car, she hopes she will have enough to buy something inexpensive from Craigslist.

O’Keefe and Parnell want answers from their insurance company. They would like reimbursement for the tree removal and other triage they have paid for out of pocket. Their savings won’t stretch much further.

“We have a little bit, but not that much,” she said. “If too much more comes in we won’t be able to take care of it ourselves.”

The couple hopes their contractor can expedite some of the building permits they will need to begin construction, but without knowing how much their insurance plans to cover, they might not be able to afford the planned renovations.

And Alander is preparing for a comeback. Although some of his signature displays were broken beyond repair, he’s determined to put on a good show next year, even if it’s smaller and features new designs. He’s been searching eBay and Craigslist for replacements, and he already bought $2,000 worth of decorations that should be delivered in the coming days.

“I’ll recover again,” he said. “One way or another, I’ll make it work.”

This story was originally published January 22, 2023 at 5:00 AM.