Fallen Tree Crushes Menlo Park Home, Narrowly Missing Residents

MENLO PARK, CA — High winds caused a large tree to fall onto a Menlo Park house Sunday afternoon, shattering windows, crushing multiple rooms and leaving the family inside "shaken but ultimately uninjured," the Menlo Park Fire Protection District said.

Fire crews arrived at the Woodland Avenue home at 1:21 p.m., and found that part of the tree had shattered windows in the home's cathedral glass ceiling, causing shards of glass to rain down onto the family inside: an infant and her two parents.

The tree also caused significant damage to two rooms, home's bearing walls and its roof. The city's building inspector had to red-tag the home as uninhabitable, displacing the family, who had recently begun renting the house after moving here from Italy.

“[W]ith the heavy winds today, fire crews have been responding to multiple incidents of power lines and trees down. This family was extremely fortunate they were not injured, or killed," Menlo Park fire chief Harold Schapelhouman said in a release.

"Menlo Park and Atherton are known for their beautiful and mature tree canopy," he said. "[It is] normally not a problem, until we have storm like conditions and heavy winds.”