A MAN says he was only minutes from disaster when a huge section of a tree was blown across the driveway of his home by storm-force winds.
A huge bough measuring more than 20ft long and up to three feet thick was ripped off the 50ft tall beech tree which stands in the front garden of the house next door to where 33-year-old Chris Carr lives in Park Avenue, Wrexham, early yesterday morning.
It crashed down across the driveway shared by the two houses and covered the
entire carriageway of the road outside.
As it fell to the ground it just missed Mr Carr’s company van parked in the driveway.
And he says if it had come down just 20 minutes earlier he would have been walking out to the vehicle to begin his journey to work in Warrington.
Mr Carr said: “I reckon I had a very narrow escape from being hit by it.
“I was just getting up for work at about 5.40am when I heard a loud creak from outside and then a big bang.
“I looked out of the window and saw a large part of the tree lying all the way down the drive and out into Park Avenue where it was touching the verge on the other side of the road.
“It missed the van I use for work by just a couple of feet and if it had happened about 20 minutes later I would have been out there getting inside to drive away.”
He added: “The council came later and used a chainsaw to make the tree safe.”
The beech belongs to Mr Carr’s next door neighbour, 80-year-old David Davies, who said: “I’ve lived here for 35 years and the tree has always been here.
“The council has a preservation order on it but I think it is rotten and hollow inside.
“I heard nothing at all when it came down although I did know the wind was very strong.
“My daughter Gillian, who lives nearby, knocked and told me about it at 7.30am.
“It fell right down the drive and out into the road and the council had to send out men to remove it.
“It is lucky there was nobody walking along Park Avenue at the time or they could have been seriously hurt.”
- The wind blew down a 20ft tree near the entrance to the Kronospan wood processing plant in Chirk yesterday morning.
The company’s human resources manager Ben Hipkiss said: “The tree came down near the entrance. We have a row of conifer trees as a frontage to make the entrance look nice. It was pulled straight out of the ground.