Gordon Avenue residents Phil and Barbara Baird woke up last Tuesday morning with a new attachment to their house.
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Mr. and Mrs. Baird were in bed during the storm on Monday night, and heard lots of noise from strong winds and rain.
However there was one specific noise that was brought to their attention.
“Everything was banging around anyway, but I heard a thud and thought ‘that’s a bit different’,” Mrs. Baird said.
The pair woke the next morning and saw a gigantic jacaranda tree had fallen from the backyard behind them onto the rear of their house.
“I’ve always wanted to live in a treehouse, but not like this,” Mr. Baird said.
“I saw it and thought ‘this is definitely going to take up the weekend.’”
Mr. Baird said he chopped off a few branches here and there, but they have to wait for the assessors and the SES to arrive to fix the damage.
To add insult to injury, their house also flooded from front to back destroying furniture and their carpet.
“You always think that things could be worse, but then you think how worse could they be?” Mr. Baird said.
“I will be doing nothing in the foreseeable future except fixing this.”
However, ever optimistic, Mr. Baird said the first thing he worried about was his hibiscus flower.
“It is sad but you have got to keep laughing about the funny side of it.”
The couple also lost power in their home, and tried to think of alternate ways to cook food.
“I just thought we could have a barbecue with the gas,” Mr. Baird said.
“…Until the bottle floated away.”
And the worst part of all?
“The tragedy of it is, this is a beautiful tree,” Mr. Baird said.