My Monday morning shock: Tree Down!

Monday morning, July 28 in Devils Lake dawned slightly overcast due to smoke from Canadian wildfires, as I looked out my kitchen window to the north I noticed the big black wire that carries cable TV into my house was laying on the ground.

“What the heck?” I thought. So I turned on the little TV set sitting on my kitchen counter to see if my reception was affected by this turn of events.

“Nope” everything seemed to be okay with my cable, it just was no longer attached to my house like it normally was. So I called the 1-800 number for my provider and gave them the information that it would need to be reattached – we couldn’t leave it laying on the ground – my first thought was something right out of the Game of Thrones, “Winter is Coming!” [eventually, but hopefully not too soon!]

They would be sending someone out to fix it today or tomorrow.

So I finished my breakfast and headed out the door to my Jeep parked in my detached garage just a few steps from the house.

I was not paying much attention to my surroundings as I unlocked the pass-through door and reached up to push the interior button that opens my garage door, so I could get to work early – it was only 7 a.m. and normally I don’t go in until 9 or 9:30 a.m.

The garage door was acting funny as it slowly opened revealing a sight I had never seen before! The leaves and branches of a whole tree filled the opening – no way was I going to be able to drive through that and get to work early today!

I went back out through the pass door and walked around the south side of the garage and what a sight I saw!

The huge – and I mean HUGE old tree from the boulevard had split in half and half of it was laying on the very north east corner of my garage!

Yup, you heard me – ON my garage!

Now the fun begins!

Of course, none of the businesses I needed in the moment were open yet – it WAS only 7 a.m.

So I called the 1-800 number for my insurance company and started the process. My very first report of damage to my house and property!

Sometimes it isn’t fun being a grown up!

Normally I would have dealt with my long-time insurance representative located right here in DL but my telephone call to that office on Monday (I called later in the day to make sure they’d be open) however for some reason no one was in on Monday afternoon so I “left a message” as the answering machine requested and waited for their return call.

That never came.

Grrrr!

The voice on the phone from the earlier 1-800 call had told me to take pictures of the tree – so I hauled out my trusty Canon Rebel ES05 T5 and took photos from each vantage point – from inside the garage – what I saw as the garage door slowly opened first thing. Then I went outside and took photos from the alley, making sure to catch the fallen tree in its entirety as it was “resting” on the highline wires that run along the alley. I use the term “resting” rather loosely because it was actually “pulling” on those wires, some of them bundled together, some individually protected by insulators, so I knew they were most likely electrical lines with power running through them. Nobody wants to get eletrocuted here!

One of my first calls of the morning – just after the surprise opening my garage door was to Erik, my cousin’s son who is my faithful yard man year round! He stopped over in just a few minutes after getting my frantic message. Since he lives about three or four blocks away from me and he was up as early as I was. After evaluating the situation we decided that he would go home and bring back a chain saw and take care of the just the branches blocking my garage door so I could at least get out and get to work. We would leave the rest of the big tree and its precarious perch on the wires to the professionals like Otter Tail and the Shade Tree folks at the Devils Lake Fire Department.

Within minutes I was free to back my Jeep out and pull around to the avenue to park.

Thanks Erik!

I’d worried about that old tree on the boulevard for years! It was one of those double trunk trees, where both trunks grew up into a tall shady, if somewhat messy “V” shape – both between 80 and 100 feet tall, I estimate. Through the years – Dad bought the house for back taxes owed on it in 1970, I believe. He’s been gone since 2003. I bought the house from Mom in 2005, so it has been my responsibility the past 20 years.

I noticed the tree was inundated with large black ants years ago – someone told me they were carpenter ants and would eventually eat the interior of the tree and most likely cause it to come crashing down someday. I mentioned this to the guys who came around trimming the trees on the boulevard most years, but since the tree itself was still full and leafy – and didn’t LOOK diseased or damaged, it remained until this fateful weekend of 2025.

I stopped in to the City Offices to let them know what had happened and they sent me to the DLVFD where I talked with the assistant fire chief, Cory Meyer, who works with the Shade Tree Dept. for the city and he went right over to my place to see what had happened. I know because I followed him over there just to see what was going on.

I found one repair guy at my front door knocking, so upon answering it, he told me that the wires down on the ground beside by garage were not electrical but they must be my cable TV wires that fell overnight. Confused, I told him, yes, the cable wires are down but didn’t he see the big tree that was threatening to take down all the other wires in the alley? So we looked around the east side of the house and THEN he saw the big tree laying on the garage and the wires and to quote Paul Harvey – now he knew the “rest of the story!”

I finally did get to talk to a human being at my local insurance agent’s office on Tuesday and that individual was not very helpful so I sarcastically ended our conversation with “Thank you for not helping me….” as I hung up. Can you tell I was a teeny bit ticked off?

Sorry, I am human after all!

On Wednesday I was contacted by an appraiser who is coming from Grand Forks next week to look at and assess the damage. I guess he is the one who decides what needs to be done and who’s responsible for what. In the meantime I am having Pete print out a bunch of photos that I took of the tree before it was all cleaned up. I will give them to him so he can add them to the claim. It looks like now that the tree is gone, all except the stump they will grind out at a later date – the chain link fence took most of the damage.

Times like this I REALLY miss my Dad, if he was still living he would have just fixed it all himself, but I am not gifted in that same way as he was.

If I need to replace any of the insulated vinyl siding or shingles – I got a few of those each stored in the rafters of my garage, so that should not be a problem. From where I can see from the ground the other items damaged or bent up pretty badly are the rain gutter and downspout.

I can’t see daylight through the roof anywhere, if that makes a difference – so maybe the roof itself isn’t badly damaged. We will see what the appraiser says next week.

Well, here I am, sneaking up on my 73rd birthday next month and I’ve almost lived through my very first insurance claim. I’ll let you know how it all turns out when we’re finally finished. Enjoy the photos I enclosed with this story!