Posted on 07/12/2005 2:45:43 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Brandi Timmons decided to sleep downstairs with her young children Sunday night, just in case one of them might wake up, frightened, from the rain pounding on the windows.
It was a decision that saved her life, but with heart-wrenching consequences.
Her husband and high school sweetheart, Ed, died early Monday morning when a huge poplar tree crashed through the roof of their Decatur home, pinning him in the couple's bed upstairs.
Timmons' wife and their two children, 3-year-old Max and 7-year-old Alley, were not injured.
Neighbors heard an ear-splitting crack around 3:30 a.m. Then came a giant thud as the tree crashed through the light gray house on Kathryn Avenue.
They rushed to the darkened home, entering through a basement door because they knew that was where the children slept.
"It was a horrendous boom," said neighbor Patricia Dodt, who was awake, bailing water from her flooded basement, when she heard the tree fall. She immediately ran to the Timmons' home.
Another neighbor was already there, racing upstairs, searching for what no one wanted to find.
"It was dark and rainy and windy, standing water, pitch black," said Dodt, who saw the children walking toward an outside porch from their bedrooms. Afraid that more trees might fall, Dodt hurried the children to her house, Max in her arms. She said she didn't see their mother, but knew she was alive.
"I could hear her calling for her husband. She was traumatized," Dodt said. "I hoped and prayed to God he was alive."
But Ed Timmons died — on the morning of his 36th birthday. It took tree cutters seven hours, using a crane to remove large segments of the massive poplar, its trunk 40 inches across, before his body could be retrieved.
The tree had fallen across the back yard — over a swing set and bright yellow slide — before smashing across the roof and into the front yard. Other trees in the back yard had also fallen, but in different directions.
Family and friends struggled Monday afternoon to make sense of the calamity that befell the well-liked Decatur family. The Timmonses were active at Clairemont Elementary School and Decatur Presbyterian Church.
Ed Timmons' father, Mac Timmons of Greenville, S.C., asked for prayers for his daughter-in-law and grandchildren.
"She is, of course, devastated," he said. "She has lost her best friend."
The couple had been married for 10 years, their romance having begun much earlier, at Eastside High School in Greenville, S.C.
Ed Timmons was the only boy Brandi Couch dated, said family friend Leah Vaughan of Decatur.
Timmons earned an engineering degree from Clemson University and an MBA from Georgia State. He was a product manager for the Alpharetta office of ConstructWare, which sells software for architects and construction firms.
"It was just earth-shattering — just unconscionable that something like this could take place," said ConstructWare Chief Executive Scott Unger. "Everyone just loved the guy."
Decatur friends remembered Ed Timmons as a Mr. Fix-it who didn't mind sharing his tools or his expertise.
"If you needed him, he went over and helped. A lot of people would hit him up for tools — and I was one of them — and he'd always help, with a smile on his face, then show up to do it again the next day," Joe DeLisle said.
He and Ed Timmons had been friends since they met 12 years ago on their first job out of college, at Law Engineering of Atlanta. They shared a love of water sports and an appreciations of alternative county musicians such as Robert Earl Keen and Steve Earle.
Timmons played the guitar and painted and rebuilt cars, but set those hobbies aside when he and his wife had children, DeLisle said.
He coached his daughter Alley's soccer team.
"He was committed to doing good. He was committed to the same woman for 20 years. He was definitely committed to his kids, to his church," DeLisle said.
A memorial service will be Wednesday at 2 p.m. at Decatur Presbyterian Church. Donations can be sent to: Mrs. Edward W. Timmons and children, 205 Sycamore St., Decatur, GA 30030.
Staff writers Mae Gentry and Jeffry Scott contributed to this article.
Her husband and her high school sweetheart were in bed together?
Seriously, sad story.
Yes.
We just don't know what will turn out the lights.
Now we know why loggers have called falling branches "Widow makers" for years.
It was in Atlanta several years ago during a rain storm that a huge tree fell on an SUV killing members of a young family. I remember thinking to myself, you never know when you're going to go.
I wonder if the roots of this tree were diseased.
After reading this, if I had trees that large over my house, I believe I'd be calling a tree surgeon to inspect them.
Sad.
If the ocean were whiskey and I were a duck
I'd dive to the bottom and never come up
Rye whiskey, rye whiskey, rye whiskey I cry
if a tree don't fall on me I'll live 'til die.
Often, what happens here in GA, is the ground becomes super-saturated by heavy rains, then all it takes is a gust of wind to knock them over. Top heavy tree, soggy ground...
can you imagine what wood have happened if this was an unpoplar tree
How true...you never know what the day may bring.
what a tragic story - and talk about Fate with her decision to sleep downstairs.
Sounds like he was a real stud.
Thanks.
I know that happens with large oak trees in Houston, TX.
This same thing very nearly happened to me. During Hurricane Hugo, my wife and I were huddled in bed as the hurricane passed over in the middle of the night. Of course there was no power, so we couldn't see anything, but our house was being pounded by tree limbs. We had several big slash pines in the yard, and at one point Hugo snapped one of them off, twirled it in the air over our house, and put it throug the roof right above us. Fortunately, although our house was small, it had been well-built (all brick, with solid old-growth longleaf pine for the rafters), and the trunk didn't get far enough through to hurt us. There was a double window right over the head of our bed...if the pine had twirled a different way, and come through the window, we would have been killed.
I'll bet Mr. Timmons' home was one of those newer, cheaply constructed homes....vinyl siding, fiberboard and 3rd-growth pine or fir 2X4s....I wouldn't live in one of those homes for anything. When we moved to Maryland, we bought an older home with an all-brick exterior, and old-growth pine rafters. Had to hunt hard to find such a home here, in the land of McMansions.
Maybe a tree falling in the woods really doesn't make a sound...
What a story!
this is profound.
It is a sad story for sure, but I can't stop thinking about these guys that came and cut the tree off the roof. Think of all the things that can be made with all that wood. 40 inch diameter? I hope they took care in cutting it up...
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