100-Foot Oak Tree Crashes Into Woman's Bedroom

Pine Brook resident Jessica Shackil heard what sounded like a wind vortex get louder and louder, and then heard a loud snap outside the bedroom of her Bogert Road home on Saturday evening.

She didn't realize it right away, but a more than 100-foot-tall oak tree snapped and fell onto the house, with a branch puncturing the ceiling of the bedroom where she was. She threw herself to the ground to take cover as the storm's intensity increased.

Steve Olsson, of Steve's Tree Service in Montville, which is dealing with the cleanup, said a beech tree helped break the fall of the oak.

"Otherwise the whole house would have been crushed" and could have been deadly, he said.

On Ashland Drive in the township, another oak tree fell on the roof of a home there as a result of the storm, he said. The power company reported because trees took out power lines.

Montville Police Officer Bill Johnson said the fallen tree on Bogert Road was called in shortly after 5 p.m. Neither Shackil nor her German Shepherd, Phil, who was in the room with her when the tree fell, were injured.

Shackil, a 27-year-old third-grade teacher in Riverdale, said she has lived there with her parents, Albert and Clara, and siblings Kristin and Michael, for 24 years. She graduated from and was a student teacher at

She was sleeping, suddenly woke up with a feeling something bad was going to happen, and then heard the storm get louder, she said.

Phil came to her, and she ran through the house to check for damage, then came back to her room and heard water dripping from her ceiling. The tree opened a larger hole in the attic, she said.

She said police responded right away and she is thankful no one was injured.

She was interviewed by TV news stations about the ordeal, and joked that the incident is a sign that it is time for her to move out.