A big tree fell on a house in Snellville on Wednesday morning and struck a family a double blow: A mother and two children were without a place to live, and the father was in jail after police responding to the incident discovered an allegedly stolen truck in the driveway.
A call came in about 8 a.m. for a tree on a house in the 3200 block of Sunderland Drive, according to the Gwinnett County Fire and Emergency Services.
“Crews found a two-story house with a large tree covering the majority of the home,” Capt. Eric Eberly, Gwinnett Fire spokesman, told the AJC in an email.
A man and his two children were in the rental house, in the living room, when the tree came crashing down, Channel 2 Action News reported.
A neighbor, Heather Jackson, told Channel 2, “I was asleep when the tree fell. It woke me up. It was just loud. We didn’t know what it was. It sounded like sliding and falling, like glass breaking.”
Family members got out safely, but the second floor of the home was split open, and the house was left uninhabitable.
The tree “severely damaged one of the bedrooms and also knocked out the deck off the back of the home,” Eberly told Channel 2. “So, if they were anywhere in that vicinity, we could have had somebody fatally injured here today.”
Meanwhile, Gwinnett County police officers were checking out a gray pickup truck in the driveway. Soon, the male head of the household was under arrest.
The father, Jimmie Dee Chapman, “has been charged with one count of theft by receiving after a stolen vehicle was discovered at the scene by officers,” police Detective J.R. Flanagan told the AJC.
Chapman was booked into the Gwinnett County Detention Center and was being held there without bond Wednesday afternoon, according to jail records. Police had the truck towed as evidence.
Family members declined to speak with Channel 2. The Red Cross was helping them find a place to stay, officials said.
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