KENNESAW, Ga. — A Cobb County family is forced to start over again after a tree destroyed their rental home.
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The tree crashed onto their house in Kennesaw on Oct. 27, Channel 2 Cobb County bureau chief Michele Newell reports.
“I woke up with a huge tree on top of me, and I was looking up from the position of the tree up to the sky,” Kurt Jensen said.
Jensen’s neighbors saw it from their kitchen window.
“I heard the noise, saw the tree, felt when it hit house. You could feel, it shook our house,” Barbara Kight said.
“Went around yelling for people to come out. Nobody came out for a while,” Hayward Kight said.
“I was just screaming for help,” Jensen said.
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Jensen was in bed when it happened. His wife and two children were in another part of the home when the tree fell on the house.
“I just climbed out from underneath the tree,” he said.
“The fire department said getting hit in the head with a tree like that and surviving is 10 million to one, but if that thing settles while I’m underneath it I’m done, too, so I’m glad I got out when I did,” Jensen said.
Thankfully, everyone made it out OK.
“It fell across the whole house, went all the way in the backyard,” Jensen said. “They said it was over 75 feet and over 15 tons. I guess it was windy the night before real bad. There was wind in the morning enough to knock it down. It looks like there was black in it. It was dying.
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Jensen said it would cost more to pay someone to decontaminate his family’s belongings than it would to replace them.
“Pretty much 99% of our stuff is gone so we have to start over,” he said.
“Just praying that we’ll get the help that we need in order to stop living in like a temporary house and be able to find a safe rental home,” Jensen said.
Jensen said he was shopping around for cheaper renter’s insurance before the tree fell on his house. The house wasn’t insured at the time of the incident. Jensen’s family is hoping a fundraiser will help them rebuild their lives.
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