A Tree Fell on My House. Here's Exactly What to Do Next

The storm passes, the wind dies down, and you walk outside to find a laurel oak lying across your roofline. Your first instinct is to grab a chainsaw and start cutting. Do not do that. What happens in the next hour determines whether this ends as an insurance claim and a repaired roof, or something far worse. Here is the order of operations we walk homeowners through in Edgewater and New Smyrna Beach every hurricane season.

Get Everyone Out and Stay Out

A tree resting on a roof is a loaded structure. The tree's weight is being carried by trusses, rafters, and sheathing that were never designed to take a lateral, point-loaded hit. Those members may be cracked, split, or partially pulled off their bearing points and still be holding — until they aren't. Secondary collapse happens hours after the initial impact all the time.

Get every person and pet out of the house through an exit that is not under the impacted area. Do not go back in for laptops, medication, or the cat's carrier. Do not send anyone into the attic to "take a look." The attic is exactly where the damaged framing is, and it is the worst place in the house to be standing when a rafter lets go.

If the tree came through into a living space, or if anyone is hurt, call 911 first. Everything else on this list waits.

Assume Every Wire Is Live

If there is any line down, any line touching the tree, or any line you cannot clearly trace and confirm, treat it as energized. Not "probably dead because the power's out." Energized.

Downed conductors can energize the ground around them, they can energize the tree itself, and they can re-energize without warning when automatic reclosers on the circuit try to restore service. A wet tree crown in contact with a primary line is a conductor. Do not touch the tree, do not touch anything touching the tree, and do not let a neighbor with a pole saw be a hero. No tree crew — ours included — can legally or safely begin work until FPL confirms the line is de-energized. That call is the single most important thing you can do to speed the whole job up.

Shut Off Utilities If You Can Do It Safely

If the panel is accessible from outside and away from the impact zone, cut the main breaker. If you smell gas or hear hissing near a propane tank or line, leave the area and call it in. If reaching the panel means walking under the tree or through the damaged room, skip it and let the responders handle it.

Photograph Everything Before Anything Moves

Insurance adjusters reconstruct the event from your photos. Once a tree crew starts cutting, the evidence of what actually happened is gone forever.

• Wide shots from every side of the house showing the tree, the point of impact, and the roofline.
• The root plate — the lifted soil and root mass where the tree came out of the ground.
• Close shots of the failure point on the trunk, if it snapped rather than uprooted.
• The interior: ceilings, walls, soaked drywall, anything the tree pushed in.
• Anything that got hit on the way down — fence, screen enclosure, vehicle, pool cage.

Shoot video too, narrating what you're seeing. Timestamped and boring beats artistic every time.

Call Your Insurer and Get a Claim Number

Do this before you hire anybody. Report the loss, get a claim number written down, and ask two specific questions: what emergency mitigation is covered without pre-approval, and what documentation they want from the tree service. Most policies cover reasonable steps to prevent further damage — tarping, water intrusion control, removing the tree from the structure — but they want an itemized invoice and photos. Every legitimate tree company in Volusia County knows how to produce that. Ask for it.

Do not sign a broad "assignment of benefits" form pushed at you by someone who showed up unsolicited in your driveway. Storm chasers work Port Orange and Daytona Beach hard after every named system.

Understand Why This Is Not a Chainsaw Job

Here is the part homeowners underestimate. A tree that has fallen is not dead weight lying still. It is a system of stored energy.

Compression and tension. Every limb and section of trunk under load has a compression side and a tension side. Cut into the wrong one, in the wrong order, and the wood does not fall — it snaps, springs, or rolls with enormous force. A trunk bridging the roof peak is in tension on top and compression underneath; cut it wrong and it closes on the bar and pinches, or it hinges and drops the whole load onto the house.

Spring poles. Any bent, pinned sapling or limb holding tension is a loaded weapon. Release it with a saw and it whips through the arc it wants to travel, at head height, faster than you can react.

Barber chair. Cut a trunk that is under heavy bending stress without relieving it properly and the fibers split vertically up the stem. The butt kicks back and up. People die from this in their own yards.

Kickback. The upper quadrant of the bar tip touches something, and the saw comes back at your face — while you are standing on a wet, pitched roof next to a hole.

What a Crew Actually Does

The professional approach is load transfer. Before a single cut, the tree is rigged — slings, ropes, and often a crane — so that the weight is picked up and held by the equipment, not by your roof. Then sections are cut and flown away, never dropped. On a tight lot in Edgewater with a screen enclosure and a neighbor's fence six feet away, a crane removal is frequently the safest and fastest option, even though it looks like overkill.

Once the tree is off, the structure gets addressed. Tarping is for water. Shoring is for load. If the roof deck is compromised, tarping alone is cosmetic — the framing may need temporary shoring before anyone walks it, and that is a conversation between the tree crew, your adjuster, and a contractor.

If a tree is on your house right now, get your family clear, keep away from any wire, and call ArboristRX at (386) 444-5959. We answer 24/7, we're licensed and insured, and we'll tell you honestly what we can do tonight and what has to wait for daylight.