A Tree Fell on Your House: What to Do in the First 24 Hours
A windstorm rolls through, you hear the crack, and suddenly there is a Douglas fir where your roofline used to be. It is one of the most jarring things that can happen to a home, and in the Northwest, with our tall conifers and saturated winter soil, it happens more than people expect. A healthy-looking tree can come down in a single gust once the ground is soft enough.
What you do in the first 24 hours shapes everything that follows: how safe your family is, how smoothly your insurance claim goes, and how much secondary damage you end up paying for. Here is the order of operations we walk homeowners through when they call us after a strike.
1. Get everyone out and stay out
Before anything else, treat the house as unsafe until proven otherwise. A tree heavy enough to breach a roof has changed the load path of your home. Ceilings can be holding water, framing can be compromised, and a structure that looks stable can shift.
Get everyone, including pets, out of the affected rooms and ideally out of the house. Do not go back in for belongings. If you smell gas, hear arcing, or see downed power lines touching the tree or the house, leave the property entirely and call 911 and your utility. Assume any downed line is live.
This is the step people rush, and it is the one that matters most. Nothing in your house is worth walking under a compromised ceiling.
2. Call for emergency help, in the right order
Once everyone is safe, make your calls in this order:
- 911 or the fire department if there is any gas, electrical, or injury concern, or if anyone is trapped.
- Your utility company if a power line is involved. Do not let a tree service or anyone else touch a line. That is the utility’s job.
- A restoration contractor who can get the home stabilized, tarped, and dried out. This is the call that stops the damage from growing overnight.
A fast, round-the-clock response is exactly what storm and tree strike restoration is built for. The sooner the house is stabilized, the less you lose. You can reach us at (425) 239-0057, and we respond to emergencies across Snohomish, King, and Skagit Counties.
3. Document everything before anything gets moved
This step pays for itself at claim time, so do not skip it even in the chaos.
From a safe distance and safe angle, photograph and video everything. The tree on the house. The point of impact. Any interior damage you can see without going into an unsafe area. Water coming in. Damaged belongings. Get wide shots that show context and close shots that show detail. Capture the whole scene before anyone starts cutting or moving debris, because your insurer’s adjuster will want to understand what happened and how bad it was at the moment of loss.
Save everything to the cloud or email it to yourself so it cannot be lost with a wet phone. This documentation becomes the backbone of your insurance claim.
4. Call your insurance company and open the claim
Call your homeowners insurance carrier and open a claim as soon as the immediate danger is handled. In most Northwest storm-strike situations, a tree falling on your home and the resulting damage are covered events, including the cost of removing the tree off the structure and repairing what it broke. Coverage specifics vary by policy, so ask your carrier directly about:
- Emergency mitigation and tarping (usually covered, and usually expected of you)
- Tree removal from the structure
- Repair or rebuild of the roof, framing, and interior
- Additional living expenses if the home is not safe to occupy
Write down your claim number and the name of everyone you speak to. Keep a running log. Organized homeowners get smoother claims.
5. Mitigate further damage. This is your responsibility too
Here is something many homeowners do not realize: your policy requires you to take reasonable steps to prevent further damage after a loss. That means getting the opening tarped and the water stopped. If you leave a hole open to the rain for a week and the damage spreads, your insurer can decline to pay for the part that was preventable.
That is why professional emergency tarping and board-up matters. A proper tarp is anchored and lapped to actually shed water through days of Northwest rain, not a blue poly sheet held down with a few bricks that peels off in the next gust. If water has already gotten in, the clock starts on mold, which can take hold in as little as 24 to 48 hours on wet drywall and framing. Fast water damage mitigation and structural drying is what keeps a roof repair from turning into a gut renovation.
A good restoration contractor handles this mitigation immediately and documents it for your claim, so you are protected on both fronts.
6. Be careful who you sign with
After a big storm, out-of-area crews show up fast, knock on doors, and push homeowners to sign over their insurance claim on the spot. Slow down. You are never obligated to sign anything under pressure, and a rushed signature can tie you to a contractor you have not vetted.
Work with a licensed, insured, local general contractor who can see the job all the way through, from the emergency tarp to the final rebuild, with one crew accountable for the whole thing. Ask for the license number, confirm they carry liability and workers’ comp, and make sure they will coordinate directly with your adjuster. A contractor who does restoration and construction under one roof means the people who tarp your roof are the same people who rebuild it to code.
What the next few weeks look like
Once the emergency is stabilized, the path forward is usually: adjuster inspection, a detailed scope and estimate, agreement on the claim, then the actual rebuild of roof, framing, insulation, drywall, and finishes. A tree strike that is caught and mitigated quickly often stays a contained repair. One that sat open to the weather becomes a much larger project. The first 24 hours really do decide which one you get.
If a tree has come down on your home anywhere in Snohomish, King, or Skagit County, call us at (425) 239-0057. We will get the house stabilized, work directly with your insurance, and rebuild it right. You can also request help here and we will respond quickly.