Winter storm causes massive tree to fall in Mandarin neighborhood

Action News Jax continues to monitor the aftermath of a storm that passed through the Mandarin area, where a large tree fell onto a neighbor’s yard on Southern Pacific Drive.

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The storm completely uprooted a massive tree from one neighbor’s yard and had it fall over onto the next-door neighbor’s driveway. Neighbors say they are relieved it didn’t land on the roof, and that it didn’t hurt anyone.

“I heard this loud, like a hit, like, boom,” neighbor Marlene Smith said. “And I was wondering what it was….I said, Greg, I heard a loud noise. I don’t know what it is. So he came and he looked and we didn’t see anything. And then we didn’t think anything of it.”

Smith said she heard the unusual noise around 4 p.m. on Tuesday.

Our Action News Jax First Alert weather team says the worst part of the storm passed through this area around that time with wind gusts from 50-60 miles per hour, the area got nearly an inch and a half of rain, and a possible tornado occurred just south of Mandarin around 4 p.m.

Smith’s neighbor Mike Flanagan said he heard the roar of the wind go through his area in a matter of minutes.

“Everything happened pretty fast, as far as thunder, all of a sudden the wind and then the tree,” Flanagan said.

Smith said she had been hunkering down and didn’t know what happened until Flanagan came over and told her the tree in his yard fell onto her driveway. Flanagan says his daughter had told him about it.

“She said, ‘Hey, Dad, the tree fell down,’” Flanagan said. “So I came out, took a peek, and went over to make sure it didn’t get to neighbors’ vehicles.”

It’s clear some debris made it onto a blue truck in Smith’s driveway, but she said she doesn’t believe there was any damage.

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Had the tree shifted slightly in the other direction, Flanagan said it could have landed in his daughter’s room. But luckily, it didn’t. He said he was already planning on removing the tree, but Mother Nature made his job easier.

“It was it was starting to die,” Flanagan said. “It had a lot of moss on it. But I didn’t think it came this quick. This makes it really easy.”

Luckily, no one got hurt.

“I’m glad everybody’s keeping everybody safe,” Smith said.

JEA’s power outage map shows only two reports nearby in Loretto. But all in all, this area appears to have been spared from the worst of the storm.

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