High winds lead to fallen trees in Luling, Destrehan

While flooding rain and strong wind impacted all of St. Charles Parish last week, some residents are dealing with an additional aftermath of the strong spring showers – fallen trees.

Destrehan resident Leah Morgan had just laid down after work on April 13 when a tree fell onto her home’s roof.

“You could just hear the wind gusting really, really bad and then all of a sudden I heard a loud boom and the house shook,” Morgan said. “I got up and looked out the window … you can’t even see it from the front of the house … but the tree was lying across the whole back of the house.”

Morgan said she feels fortunate that she, her husband and 11-year-old daughter who were all home at the time weren’t injured.

“We have three large trees on that side of the house, and I had them all trimmed back this summer,” Morgan said. “When the guy came to move the tree he looked at it and said the tree was healthy. The wind was insane.”

Morgan said the whole situation made it very hard for her to settle down.

“There was a lot of panic,” she said. “The tree was in the house and my husband was sick and the kids were coming home from school in streets that were flooded.”

Luling resident Robert Letellier said the gale force winds associated with the April 13 storm also knocked over a tree in his back yard.

“It was stuck on another tree, so I texted my neighbor to warn about the dangers of it not being finished falling,” Letellier said. “It actually fell perfectly in between the fence and house four hours later.”

Letellier said he was grateful for the fortunate placement of the fall, even though the initial noise accompanying the event was scary. This was the second time, in fact, that the Letelliers have gone through this scary scenario.

“We are in this house on Ellington Avenue because two years ago during Hurricane Olga we lost our home when a giant oak tree in our yard destroyed the home,” Letellier said of the house on Fourth Street where he and his family used to reside. “We were stuck in a hotel but with help from Social Concerns and the American Way we got the help we needed to restart.”