High Winds Take out 100 Year Old Tree

Todd McCombs had gone outside his Russell home around 1a.m. Monday, June 18, to move one of his two cars because it was near a 100-year-old oak tree and he feared branches of the tree might come down on the car.  He had just moved it when he heard what he thought was a train and then heard the massive tree tumble onto the northwest corner of his house and smash the back window of another car.  "The sound I heard had to have been a tornado overhead," he said.  Friends and neighbors were out Monday cutting the tree off his house.  Dozens of trees in Russell were damaged and several cars had trees and branches fall on them.  Tree damage was also visible along Highway 34 in both directions from the Russell turn-off.