Costly cleanup facing North Sound residents after tree fell on 4 mobile homes

Some North Sound residents are counting their blessings that no one was hurt when a massive tree fell onto their mobile homes.  

Now, the big cleanup is underway.

That tree came down on four homes in the Martha Lake Mobile Home Park on Lakeview Road in Lynnwood.

It caused extensive damage, and now homeowners are worried about having to foot the bill for the repairs.

This could pose a considerable hardship for these families.

They don’t have homeowners insurance, and it is obvious how much damage was done. That huge tree came down without warning.

The extensive damage in this section of the Martha Lake Mobile Home Park is quite a sight.

A gust of wind Saturday afternoon knocked a massive tree to the ground.

It fell on four mobile homes in its path.

“Dad was home, chopping wood, a gust of wind out of nowhere,” said Eduardo Mendoza-Perez.  “And they’re like something doesn’t sound right. They felt a bunch of shaking.”

“Their house shook,” his wife, Silvia, said.

“Yeah, their neighbor’s house shook,” Eduardo agreed.

“The dishes in another neighbor’s house,” added Silvia, “All of them broke.”

This is what greeted them when they arrived hours later, a huge exposed root ball.

“So, apparently, what my parents have heard from the people who came out to check the trees, it’s not the actual tree that’s dead,” said Eduardo. “It’s the root system from there being too much piping stuffed down in the grounds.”

“There’s not a whole lot of big, really big roots that are basically holding it down,” agreed neighbor Bill Rogers.

He said that’s why many of these trees are vulnerable. So, the owner of the park has been removing them for months including the one next to the tree that came down.

“They apparently missed the one tree that fell,” Rogers said.

Now, families here have a new worry. No one we talked to has homeowners insurance. And they say the mobile home park owner has told them they are largely on their own.

“It’s very sad,” said Silvia Mendoza-Perez. “Everything they’ve worked for. All the remodels that they’ve done to their units, it’s sad.”

Much will depend on who actually owns these trees.  The homeowners say they just rent the land not the property.  And the Lynnwood Municipal Code says trees on private property are owned by the property owner.

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