SHREVEPORT, LA (KSLA) -
Monday night Michael Anthony woke up when a crashing noise outside his house startled him.
"My house shook, and I didn't know what was going on," said Anthony.
When he checked his back yard, he found an almost 70-year-old tree had crashed into his roof and crushed part of this fence. It fell to the side of the house, so it didn't do too much damage to the roof, and Anthony says he's glad no one got hurt.
"Thank God. It's a wonder it didn't go through that window. It's a miracle," he said.
Anthony has lived in his house since he was a kid, and can remember building tree houses in the tree's once strong branches, so he was surprised to find shallow and rotted roots.
"The last few summers we haven't had much rainfall at all, and because of that you've got trees dying," said Robert Brewster, owner of Robert's Tree Service.
Brewster says the rain has helped ease the drought, but for trees that already died the rain and muddy soil has actually done more harm than good.
"Because of the amount to rainfall we've had in a short period of time, and because the tree's been so dry, then you have a brittle tree with no kind of solidity in the soil causing them to uproot with very little wind," said Brewster.
Brewster has had to clean up more uprooted trees than usual in the last few weeks, but he says there are some steps homeowners can take to prevent uprooting, "Keep your trees cleaned out, cleaned up, where the wind can blow freely. That's gonna reduce wind tip overs."
Brewster also said after a tree dies, it can take a few years before you can see physical signs on the outside of the tree, which is why home owners often don't realize they have a problem until it's too late.
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