A tree split in two and crashed into Mission Girls’ tile roof Friday morning, bringing clean-up crews to saw branches away and shutting down 24th Street from Balmy Alley to Harrison Street for more than two hours.
The building, which serves as the site of a Head Start pre-school and the Mission Girls youth programs, was occupied by some six teachers at the time but no children, who normally don’t attend on Friday. Everyone was able to leave the building unscathed, and no pedestrian injuries were reported.
“I would’ve been stuck in there,” said Dulce Ortiz, a case manager for Mission Girls, who had just left the building when the first tree came down.
The tree first split at around 9:30 a.m., according to Ortiz. A branch first fell onto the street, bringing people out of the building and shutting down the area to pedestrians. Firefighters then began clearing the branch, according to police at the scene, at which point a second split brought a branch crashing onto the building’s roof, where it destroyed some tiles.
“At this point the damage does not appear significant,” said Maria Bermudez, the operations director of Mission Girls, who said the school should re-open on Monday. “There wasn’t much damage to the roof, just the tiles.”
Those nearby when the tree split said they heard a loud crash and boom when the first branch fell.
“I was taking an order from a customer, and I heard something like a bomb,” said Lamea Abuelrous, the owner of Temo’s Cafe across the street. She went out to the street with staff and customers to look at the scene and saw the branch covering the street. Some 20 minutes later, after first responders had arrived, the second branch came tumbling down. “Everything happened so fast.”
All of the Head Start teachers in the school at the time were relocated to the Mission Neighborhood Center’s main building on Capp Street.
A supervisor on-site said the tree would be cut down to a five-foot stump, but that it would need to be completely removed later on. They couldn’t do that this morning, he said, because last night’s storm caused more damage city-wide, and they had a busy day ahead of them.