“Early to bed, early to rise...” may not be a wise axiom all of the time.

Red Boiling Springs resident Dorothy Whitley was sitting in her recliner in the living room of her small mobile home last Tuesday night, January 29.

A line of fast moving thunderstorms, accompanied by strong winds was passing through the county.

“It got real quiet,” said Ms. Dorothy, “then it sounded like an airplane roaring close overhead, with pictures falling off the walls.”

Two large trees on the hillside behind the dwelling had fallen onto the north end of the neat mobile home, crashing through the roof of the bedroom, completely demolishing one end, and snapping the power line pole like a matchstick.

The storm also took out power to a central section of Red Boiling Springs for more than an hour, and on out the Gamaliel Road for as long as four hours.

Knowing a severe wind and rain storm was passing through, but not knowing the trees had fallen on her house, Ms. Dorothy called her daughter, Cathy Greanead, who lives next door, and walked out the front of the house with the cordless phone in her hand.

Ms. Whitley said she encountered a tree limb just outside her front door as big around as a five gallon bucket, and heard a snap just as she was telling her daughter the power had just gone off.

The “snap” was apparently a power line, snagged by the falling tree, which when it broke catapulted across the road and was found later on the Hwy.... 52.. overpass, a quarter of a mile away .

The Whitley's waited for insurance adjusters to arrive Wednesday morning. Later in the day, Billy Whitley, friends and relatives were able to enter the dwelling and remove this mother's belongings before it rained again.

Dorothy Whitley is staying temporarily with her daughter and son-in-law next door.

“I was really lucky. If I'd been back there in the bedroom, I might not be here today,” she said.

She continued, “You know, I wasn't upset at all at first; but thirty minutes later, sitting over at Cathy's house, I was shaking all over!”

Family and friends came out in force Saturday, February 2 and helped clean up Ms. Dorothy's yard. Children and grandchildren from as far away as DeKalb County joined in the workday.

“I'm going to have all those trees on the hillside behind the house cut down before we put a new trailer back in here. I never dreamed they'd fall on the house, but after this, I couldn't live here for worrying it might happen again.”