It was a 1-foot Yosemite seedling in 1932. This week, it destroyed 3 cars in Hughson

About noon Saturday, Paulo Romero slipped out of his Chevy Tahoe and went inside his house. Ten minutes later, the family heard and felt a humongous crash just outside the front door, and a familiar car alarm began wailing, so he feared a wayward driver must have plowed into one of his three vehicles parked outside.

It wasn’t a traffic accident. But all three vehicles were totaled, crushed like proverbial tin cans under the neighbor’s massive, 120-foot pine tree that blew down in the moderate wind storm.

“It was the tallest tree in Hughson, till noon Saturday,” said its owner, Linda Madewell. “Now it’s the longest tree in Hughson.”

Neighbors rushed to make sure no one was hurt. People crowded around as a firetruck rolled up. City crews sawed off the top and various limbs poking into Third Street, a bit north of Locust Street, clearing one lane for traffic.

“It was crazy,” said across-the-street neighbor Eva Hutton.

Five days later, most of the enormous tree remained sprawled with the three vehicles pinned helplessly underneath, as those involved waited for insurance to sort out the mess. Passing cars slowed to get a good look; a few pedestrians surveyed the wreckage.

Having lost the used SUV that Romero had acquired only a month ago, plus his wife’s Ford F-150 pickup and his son’s Lexus, the family is getting by with a car loaned by a friend.

“I was devastated when I looked out and saw his cars,” Madewell said. “The tree crushed — I’m going to repeat that word — crushed his three cars.”

The tree showed no sign of disease, said Jaylen French, development director at City Hall. Wind gusts that day, measured at the Modesto Airport, reached 44 mph, according to the National Weather Service.

Madewell and her husband bought their place in 1984, according to property records. They learned that previous owners paid a visit in 1931 or 1932 to a son working on roads in Yosemite National Park. While there, they dug up a 1-foot pine seedling and transplanted it to their front yard on Third Street in Hughson.

Over the years, it grew. And grew, and grew.

“People just couldn’t help but look up, it was so high,” Madewell said. “The elderly gentleman on the corner would pray that it wouldn’t fall in his direction. So people have been praying over this tree for 40 years.”

Maybe it worked, as no one was in the cars or in Romero’s front yard when it fell. It dented his rain gutter and ruined fencing for three yards, but missed his house.

“We’re lucky,” said Romero, who bought his house nine years ago and still has no regrets. “Ten minutes made a difference for us. Ten minutes ... It could have been another story.”

This story was originally published December 21, 2017 at 3:21 PM with the headline "It was a 1-foot Yosemite seedling in 1932. This week, it destroyed 3 cars in Hughson."