The three trees that came crashing down next to the Downie’s family home.
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Five residents at a Butler St address were among many families who had close calls in Wednesday night’s storm.
The Downie family had a stroke of luck when three large trees on their fenceline fell and missed the house.
Dave Downie said they became aware of the danger when ‘‘the girls heard a really loud crack’’.
‘‘They went out the front door and saw the trees falling down,’’ he said.
‘‘It missed the car by about three inches and took down a line off the power poles.
‘‘We moved all the cars out of the way and away from the trees after that.
‘‘We rang the police and electrical company and they all came and had a look.
‘‘They rolled up the power line which is now next to the power pole out of the way.’’
Nikkie Downie noticed that one of the three trees had fallen onto their water meter right against the fence.
‘‘Luckily we didn’t lose power but we still could if another tree comes down,’’ she said.
‘‘This tree used to be right at our fence and could have fallen any way so we are lucky it didn’t fall straight onto the house.
‘‘We can’t believe how close it came to hitting the car.’’
Mr Downie said there had not been a clean-up crew sent out to the residence as of Thursday morning but he was expecting them to arrive at some point yesterday after seeing the clean-up efforts around town.
‘‘Overall I think we were very lucky that no one here was hurt,’’ he said.
