A Duluth man

miraculously escaped injury when an estimated 150-year-old oak tree fell

on his work truck at a home off Banks Road in Fayetteville Wednesday morning.

Mathew Desautels

said he didn't even see the tree falling, but he felt and heard the crash

as it landed on top of his vehicle.

"I was

waiting in my truck and the first thing I knew I just felt it," Desautels

said. "It shook me up quite a bit."

He exited through

the truck's back window, which was shattered when the tree hit. He ran

out to check on his co-worker Randy Findley, who was also unhurt.

Desautels had

a headache Wednesday afternoon, but that was the extent of his injuries.

He felt fortunate to have survived the incident.

"He definitely

wants me to continue doing electrical work," Desautels said. "I

just thank God you want to talk about scary."

Desautels had

been waiting for his boss to deliver equipment for electrical work that

needed to be done to the house.

The tree also

missed the home of Bobby and Joyce Nipper, landing near the front porch.

Paula Wilcox, the Nippers' daughter, said the home was built in 1876 and

was bought by her grandparents Effie and Raymond Banks in 1946.

"This

is the old homestead," Wilcox said.

Wilcox said

she thought the tree's roots were undermined by all the rain the area

has received after having two years of a dry spell.

"I think

the roots just got washed out," she said.

Heavy rains

this week were also to blame for undermining the support structure for

the bridge across Flat Creek in the Smoke Rise neighborhood in north Peachtree

City.

The bridge

is closed until further notice while city work crews replace it, meaning

residents of the pricey neighborhood will be cut off from each other for

an undetermined number of days.

Smoke Rise

can be accessed from both Peachtree Parkway and Swanson Road, off Ga.

Hwy. 54, so no residents will be completely cut off.

Peachtree City

Mayor Steve Brown said the same type erosion that caused the bridge to

lose its support is also causing the banks of creeks and streams throughout

the city to collapse.

Beyond the

obvious frustration that brings, he said, is the possibility that much

of the silt from the erosion upstream is settling again in Lake Peachtree,

which just went through a dredging project.

"We've

already pulled the barge (used for dredging) out of the water, but I dare

say we had quite a bit of that silt go back in the lake," Brown said.

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