Early Wednesday during an onslaught of rain at the San Lorenzo Valley
Tri-Campus, a large oak tree came crashing down onto numerous cars in the elementary school parking lot, leaving many of the staff and students shaken.
Causing thousands of dollars in damage, the 50-year-old tree effectively created a fair amount of chaos for several hours at the elementary campus. Staff and reporters from KSBW swarmed the scene briefly while the incident was cleared.
Staff members were relieved to find that the only damage caused was to several cars in the front parking lot as well as the multi-purpose room, whose windows were busted out in the incident. Luckily a P.E. class had left the multi purpose room just minutes before the crash, and the whole of the campus was extremely reassured after discovering no one had been injured.
Many of the staff at first believed the commotion from the tree to be the effects of an earthquake. The shaking reached across a fair part of the campus, and had more than a few students and teachers pausing and wondering about the quaking.
Principal Jennifer Lahey commented on the ordeal, expressing the similarity to a natural disaster; ““What a noise! I thought it was an earthquake. It was a big boom, it shook the building.”
Eric Slaughter, the director of maintenance and transportation at SLV interviewed about the effects of the fall. In regards to the cause he said “the wind and the rain” was the main force behind the incident, and that 5 cars were damaged in the accident. The fall led to much commotion and the total cost of damage including the clean-up was $30,000.
The elementary has decided to hire an arborist, a specialist in trees, to check on each of the old oaks on the property in order to ensure the safety of all staff and students in the future. The entire tri-campus dealt with the issue extremely efficiently and all were thankful that no one was injured.
(Photo by KSBW)
By Callie Solberg
The Claw 