Storm slams some hard: 'Honey, a tree is going to hit our house...'



BELLEVUE -- It could be called the unfortunate sound of the season.

The roar of a chainsaw, usually at this time of the year, preceded by high winds and downed trees.

One, 90 feet tall and 12,000 pounds, landed on top of Eric and Robin Miles’ Bellevue home.

They were inside Saturday morning, when the tree came down.

"I was upstairs, the wife was downstairs.  She saw it.  I felt it. I thought it was an earthquake at first,” homeowner Dan Miles said.

"I was watching the trees waving in the wind and next thing I knew I saw one of the trees coming toward the house and so I yelled to my husband and said, 'Honey, a tree is going to hit our house' and then bang and everything shook and, oh, my gosh,” homeowner Robin Miles said.

On the inside there is damage in the kitchen and in this upstairs bedroom.

But, the Miles know there is likely structural damage they cannot see.

An insurance adjuster is expected this week and the good news is no one was hurt.

"We were very, very, lucky, very lucky,” Robin Miles said.

Heath Hampton is lucky too.

The storm brought a windfall of new business for his Cloudy Sky Tree Service.

They've been working nonstop and there's still a lot of work to do.

"We've been fairly busy but this just pushes us back enough to help us get to Christmas,” tree service owner Heath Hampton said.

Now that the storm has passed the cleanup is under way and there's a lot of work still to be done to rake up leaves, clean out gutters and most importantly to clear storm drains.

Road crews are doing their part but all of us must do our part to clean drains near our homes and keep them free of debris.

"We've got about 80,000 storm drains in the city of Seattle and at this time of year they get overwhelmed when there's a big wind storm and all the leaves blow into the drains.  If they can help us out by raking out their local storm drain they can stop flooding in front of their house,” Seattle Public Utilities spokesman Andy Ryan said.