- October 31, 2024
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Helga Mestres was asleep the morning of Aug. 2 when a tree toppled through the roof of her home on Village Circle in Palm Coast.
"All of a sudden I hear a huge bang and boom, like a bomb fell on the house," she said. "And it startled me and I jumped up off the bed, all confused and I don’t know what's going on, and I ran outside and there was a tree on the house." And also in the house: One limb of the tree had pierced the tile roof and the attic, and punched a hole into the ceiling of the master bedroom.
"I cannot even tell you what was going through my mind; it was just indescribable," Mestres said.
Mestres' husband, Miguel Mestres, had been outside that morning on the couple's porch, watching workers on the nearby Pine Lakes Golf Course fell trees. They were guiding one down with a rope when something went wrong, and one of the workers yelled at him to get out of the way.
"I get out and the tree was coming down — it landed on the porch between the porch and the bedroom," he said.
He went to check on Helga, and found her unharmed, but shaken.
The couple spent the day at the home of their cousin, Deborah Shah. Workers placed a blue tarp on the roof, holding it down with sand bags and bits of broken roofing tile. But the tree limb that pierced through the ceiling is still there, embedded in the house.
What's next?
"I have no idea," Helga Mestres said.
"They’re waiting for the HOA and the golf course," Shah said. "The HOA said their insurance and their lawyers are looking at it, but they’re in limbo."
The home is a townhouse, and the tree also appeared to have caused some damage to the roof of the unit next door, Helga Mestres said.
The Pine Lakes Golf Course could not be reached before the Palm Coast Observer's print time. Concerned about rain storms and potential water intrusion, the Mestres will be using another bedroom in the house until the damage is taken care of, they said.
