Another tree falls on borough home

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A large tree rests on a home at 402 Hillside Ave. in Naugatuck earlier this week. -CONTRIBUTED

NAUGATUCK — Alice Clark was asleep when a large oak tree came crashing through her living room at the end of October.

Last Friday afternoon, about four months later, a second tree thudded into her bedroom.

The first tree split Clark’s home of 50 years in half. The second took out the only two rooms that weren’t damaged by the first.

“Can you imagine?” Clark said. “The two things that were left are gone. I don’t know how it could strike twice in a couple of months.”

Clark, who will turn 96 in May, is taking the damage in stride.

“Just a little excitement at the end of my life,” she said, laughing. “I’m not going to say what else can happen because it could.”

Clark said she believes the second tree was an ash that was hollowed out inside by the invasive emerald ash borer beetles.

She stayed in a hotel for a while after the first tree tore apart her home and is now renting a unit in Heritage Village in Southbury. Most of her furniture is in storage.

“It’s a good thing we had most everything cleaned out,” she said Thursday.

Dumpsters have been dropped off by the house so she can throw away the things she doesn’t need, but repairs have not yet started from either of the fallen trees.

“With the second tree, it’s just a total loss,” Clark said.