MUSKEGON HEIGHTS, Mich. (April 28, 2014) — He never wants to go back into his room again. That’s the feelings of an 18 year-old Muskegon county teen who was asleep in his bed when a giant tree crashed through the roof.
“I would be dead,” said Ortiz, who said he was blessed that he didn’t get hurt.
With every wind gust that howled outside his bedroom window Monday morning, Ortiz got more nervous about the giant tree that sat feet away in the neighbor’s yard in the 2400 block of Maffett Street.
“The next thing you know I feel and hear the house shaking,” described Ortiz. “When that happened, it was so loud. I started screaming my sisters name. She was yelling mine.”
A giant limb pierced the roof, raining parts of the ceiling and shingles onto his bed, with him still in it. Ortiz said it sounded like a bomb went off and shook the house.
The giant tree was split in half, with most of it falling on his family’s house, which he shares with his sister, brother-in-law and three nieces and nephews. Miraculously, no one was hurt.
“I told my sister, if you fix this house I’m not sleeping here,” said Ortiz. “I’m never coming back in this room again.”
The enormous tree his family worried about falling down during the storms a few weeks back, is no longer a threat. But the cleanup will be extensive.
The family said they do not have any insurance.
The tree is in their neighbor’s yard. But no one answered when FOX 17 knocked on the door.
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tc1
A home with no insurance? Wow, now that is stupid, but this kid has enough money to have six sneaker boxes sitting beside his rack stereo equipment, and when the storm a few weeks ago did not impress upon them enough interest to get insurance, you cannot blame the tree after that point…
NIcole DiDonato
Unfortunately, we cannot make accurate judgements on a family's financial status.