A Nova Scotia family says they feel lucky after a 150-year-old tree blew over during Hurricane Dorian and narrowly missed their home.
"It could have destroyed our home and maybe even destroyed us -- you never know," said Sydney resident Laurie Dupe in an interview with CTV National's Vanessa Lee.
"We were lying in bed [and] it sounded like a bomb or something went off and then it was like everything went silent," said Dupe.
Dupe says she first thought the tree had crashed through the roof, only to look outside and see that it narrowly missed her home.
The 150-year-old tree -- one of the oldest in Sydney -- was already worryingly huge when Dupe moved in to the home at age five.
"My parents, anytime we had a storm, we'd always worried about that tree falling," she said.
Dupe said that she wanted to cut down the tree for years, but the removal would cost thousands of dollars. Now, Dorian has done the job for her without leaving a scratch on her home.
"Finally the tree is gone and we all survived it -- and I don't even need to put in a claim," Dupe laughed.
But she says it’s a close call she won't soon forget.
"It’s unbelievable… We're just glad and believe somebody was definitely watching over us," she said.
Dupe's feeling of relief that she, her husband and her two sons are safe, is shared by Glace Bay residents David Campbell and his wife.
Campbell said two trees crashed onto his home’s roof during the storm. Each trunk rolled down on either side of the house without damaging the structure.
"I’d say we were lucky," said Campbell.
There have been no reports of serious injuries, but the destructive aftermath of Hurricane Dorian's strong winds and torrential rains is on full display, with roofs blown off buildings and debris scattered across roads.
The Canadian Hurricane Centre says there are numerous uprooted trees that have pulled down power lines causing various outages across the Maritimes.
Emergency crews are still working to restore electricity for nearly half a million customers.
