North Bellmorite’s home under trees

“It sounded like an explosion,” North Bellmorite Patricia Gonzalez reflected, describing the moment early Sunday morning when a giant oak tree collapsed onto her home as Hurricane Irene passed through her neighborhood.

At about 8:30 a.m., Gonzalez was sitting in the den of her Jacqueline Avenue ranch when the 45-foot tree came crashing onto her home.

The 50-year old tree, which had been rooted in front of her sidewalk, toppled, falling into the front of Gonzalez’s home, but her windows remained intact. Just minutes before, Gonzalez had been in her bedroom at the front of the house. Large tree limbs now rest in the room’s windowsill and above the roof. “It’s amazing that no windows broke,” she said. Gonzalez’s power lines are behind her house and also remained intact.

Gonzalez, who had just taken her 19-year-old daughter, Marisa, to SUNY Cortland on Friday, was settling into the role of “empty nester” for the first time when news came for the mandatory evacuations along the coastline. Her boyfriend, Ken Bauer, lives on Gilgo Beach, on the same barrier island as Jones Beach, so Gonzalez helped Bauer secure his waterfront home before the couple traveled back to North Bellmore. They had figured that Gonzalez’s home would be a safer place to ride out the storm. Bauer’s home is without power, but suffered minimal damage.

After the tree fell onto Gonzalez’s home, Bauer went outside to survey the damage, grabbing his camera to document the incident. As Bauer was photographing the tree, he heard a crack behind him. Bauer turned to see another 45-foot oak tree across the street slowly begin to lean into the street. Within a minute, the second tree was on top of the first, adding to the mass on Gonzalez’s home.

Both Gonzalez and her neighbor called in the downed trees, and by Sunday evening, the section of the tree that blocked the street had been removed and pushed to the side, allowing cars to pass through. (The street functions as a thoroughfare between Newbridge Road and Jerusalem Avenue.) The remainder of the trees, though, are still stacked on Gonzalez’s property, blocking any view of the home from the street.