A Prince George woman said she feels like she’s “stuck between a rock and a hard place” after a tree fell down on top of her trailer during Tuesday’s windstorm.
On Jan. 30, powerful gusts of wind close to to 100 kilometres per hour toppled trees onto power lines, causing widespread outages that affected about 10,000 customers.
One of the first areas of the city to lose power was the Hart, with the first BC Hydro crews being dispatched at 2:30 a.m.
Tanya Parks owns a mobile home located in the Irvindale Trailer Park in the Hart.
“A big windstorm came along and my roommates in the back felt the trailer shake and woke me up at 3 in the morning,” said Parks.
“I came out and it was blowing me around it was pretty powerful.”
She was then shocked to see a tree had cracked and fallen over on top of her trailer.
“I have been telling the landlord to get rid of the trees for years, even before the landlord we have now. I think it’s about time we get them gone because they are ancient. The tops are all dead and they had the orange tape around them,” she said.
Luckily Parks and her roommates were not injured when the tree fell onto the trailer but she’s noticed some interior damage to her spare room.
“I went into my spare room, and it is now bowed so I have a broken beam inside too and I didn’t see that until the next morning.”
Parks said she was always worried that the trees were going to fall onto her trailer and is now worried that the remaining trees could fall and cause more damage.
“I have always worried, even my husband was before he passed away. We sleep in the back bedroom and those trees are bowed and I am scared that one of them is going to fall on the trailer,” she said.
Parks also does not have insurance for the exterior of her trailer. She said her husband has tried to insure it before he passed away but was unable to because of the age of the mobile home.
“I’m scared because this is my home. My landlord is telling me to go to an insurance agency and I don’t know what to do,” she said.
“I’m here and I am like between a rock and a hard place but I don’t know what to do. I have help but only a certain amount of help.”
She said she has no way to fix her trailer, but thinks it’s safe enough to continue living in.
“It's safe in there but I'm scared,” she said. “I'm not sure if it's broken beam or anything like that in the spare room. So now I have to clear the whole room out because it's full of storage.”
Tuesday’s powerful winds were related to the atmospheric river that brought record temperatures to many parts of the province on Monday.
