MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Friday’s thunderstorm hit East Memphis especially hard, with houses, cars and streets covered with large branches and even larger trees.
One giant tree on South Perkins Road near Amboy Road was blown down by the nearly 80 mile-an-hour winds during the storm. Somehow, it did not do any serious damage to the three houses in its path.
“We started seeing the wind, and we just ran that way because we knew trees where there,” Jennifer Amaya, whose home was just missed by the tree, said.
It’s one of several homes on Perkins Road covered in fallen trees.
The storm also snapped a tree in half in the back yard of the same house. There was plenty more damage done Friday thanks to massive trees, which East Memphis is full of.
“People don’t realize when they first plant these trees, what’s going to happen,” East Memphis resident Dennis Dixon said. “These trees get up to 100 feet tall or so and they’re just really close to the houses and it’s a hazard.”
Amaya said the trees next door were there when her parents moved in nearly 20 years ago.
“They’ve been here since then and the neighbors say they’ve been here even longer,” she said.
Dixon said one house on the corner of South Perkins and Amboy was badly damaged in a storm last year. Friday afternoon, the house was under a pile of large tree branches.
“They had to replace their entire roof,” Dixon said. “The whole right side of the house was caved in. And they’ve got to deal with it all over again.”
After a week filled with storms, Dixon and other Memphians are tired of constantly looking out for falling trees.
“I used to love trees,” Dixon said. “Not so much anymore.”