Tree Takes Out Power in Rodgers Forge

Jason McCormick has had a bit too much adventure for one weekend.

The Rodgers Forge resident, 34, was watching the fall outside his Dumbarton Road home shortly after 6 p.m. Saturday. Then things got weird.

"I heard wood cracking and I saw the tree falling directly towards me," he said.

"Fun stuff," he added with a sarcastic chuckle.

The tree, located across an alley from McCormick's backyard, fell diagonally, pulling down power lines and snapping a utility pole into several pieces. The tree crushed a neighbor's wooden fence, mangled McCormick's chain-link fence, hit his roof and came to rest mere inches from his back door. And he watched the whole thing happen.

Neighbor Egon Binkerd heard the tree fall Saturday night and first thought it was a car accident.

"When we cut a tree down, it is a different sound," said Binkerd, 91.

Binkerd added that he was worried about a tree in his backyard that, if winds continue, could be the next to fall.

Though shaken, McCormick realizes that things could have been far worse.

"I assumed it would do a lot of damage, but it hit the roof and the bulk of it hit the ground," he said.

On Sunday morning, the alley was marked off with police tape, and the tree and utility pole still lay where they fell.

Many residents in Rodgers Forge, Anneslie, Stoneleigh and other nearby communities were without power.

By 11 a.m., Sunday, a BGE crew had arrived to repair the pole. It's unclear when power will be restored to the neighborhood.