Tree through the roof disrupts morning routine

Years from now, Rima Edmonds will tell her son Sean about the time high winds sent a tree crashing into their Sammamish living room, burying him in debris.

And he slept through it.

Sean, 11 months old, was asleep on the couch Wednesday as the Edmonds household went about its morning routine.

Rima Edmonds was up at 5 a.m., helping her children get ready for school. By 6:30, her husband, Jim, was out the door. Winds howled against their Sammamish home.

The mother of four had a half-hour before she had to leave for work. Her mother, Sharon Christensen, sat on the couch with Sean sleeping next to her. A television reporter warned viewers, "It's going to be a windy one."

They heard branches break outside. And then came the crash.

A 60- to 70-foot fir tree, uprooted after a month of record-setting rain, fell through the roof. The back of the house "vaporized," Edmonds said.

Chunks of ceiling fell on Christensen's head, the Christmas tree toppled, and white insulation blanketed the remains of the living room.

"I can't find the baby! I can't find the baby!" Christensen screamed.

Edmonds ordered her mother, who was bleeding, out of the living room as she dug through the debris. She unearthed the baby from a mountain of fluffy insulation. He was still asleep, she said.

"It looked like he was buried in snow," she said.

Christensen was treated at Swedish Medical Center for a gash on her head. The family iguana, named Scratchy, escaped to safety when its cage was crushed. Two cats, Sasha and Sylvester, are still missing. No one else was hurt.

A construction crew came out Wednesday morning to remove the tree. But it will probably be months before the family can move back into the house on 241st Avenue Southeast where they've lived for 12 years. They may stay with friends or family until they can rent a house, said Edmonds.

For the first time since she and her husband married 22 years ago, they won't be celebrating Christmas at home, she said.

Sonia Krishnan: 206-515-5546 or skrishnan@seattletimes.com