Trees and branches came down on cars and homes in South Bay Tuesday.
A neighborhood came together after they saw a teetering tree inching closer and closer to a home.
“Someone came to the side gate and said, ‘there's a tree out front that's going to fall on your house any minute’ so I got up and got out of the house and haven't been back,” said Julia Sandelman.
She said she was working from a room she rents when she heard the fierce winds and saw the tree swaying like never before. Also inside the house was the owner’s son, who was sleeping in the room right beneath the tree.
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“It was fortunately a disaster, a tragedy, that did not happen,” said San Jose resident Sandy Schmidt.
As soon as she got home, Schmidt called the city. She said she had been placed on a waitlist due to the overwhelming number of calls they’ve been receiving.
So she and neighbors took matters into their own hands -- calling crane and tree companies.
“I’m paying thousands of dollars, many thousands of dollars out of pocket today for the tree service to come and do emergency tree removal, but it's a city tree,” said Schmidt.
Then there’s outages. Thousands were in the dark across the South Bay
“I was on a call with a customer and all of a sudden the power went out and I go, ‘uh oh,’” said Daryn McGiness of San Jose.
Families like McGiness’ are trying to make due with flashlights, but it's been tough dealing with this and working from home.
“I would go to my mom’s who lives 5 miles away, but her power is out too,” said McGiness.
A chaos that, according to PG&E, has been tough to access and respond to.
