An 85-year-old DeLand woman is recovering after a massive tree collapsed onto her home and trapped her beneath the debris, an ordeal she endured while already grieving the recent loss of her son.
The woman recounted surviving the collapse in an interview with FOX 35 Orlando, describing how the tree came down on her house and left her pinned beneath the wreckage.
A City Built Around Its Tree Canopy
DeLand's dense urban forest is part of daily life in the city, which manages more than 7,000 right-of-way trees and maintains a 4,000-tree municipal nursery, according to the City of DeLand. The city has held Tree City USA designation through the Arbor Day Foundation for 38 consecutive years, a distinction that reflects its commitment to urban forestry even as that same canopy occasionally turns hazardous during severe weather.
DeLand has seen this kind of damage before. An EF-2 tornado tore through the city in August 2020 with winds between 105 and 115 mph, snapping healthy tree trunks and severely damaging roof structures across town, per Fox 35 Orlando's earlier coverage of that storm. The danger isn't limited to high-wind events, either — a 71-year-old man died in November 2022 after being crushed by a heavy tree limb while performing trimming work on a local property, according to Tree Care Industry Magazine.
Who Pays When a Tree Falls
Falling trees have proven lethal elsewhere in Florida as well. During Hurricane Debby in August 2024, a 13-year-old boy was crushed to death after a tree collapsed through the roof of a mobile home in Levy County, Fox 35 Orlando reported at the time, underscoring how vulnerable Florida roofs can be during tree-impact events.
For homeowners facing this kind of destruction, Florida law draws a sharp line around liability. The state generally follows a negligence-based rule for fallen tree damage, meaning a homeowner typically isn't financially responsible if a healthy tree falls during a storm — liability only shifts if the tree was visibly dead, diseased, or structurally compromised and the owner failed to act, according to Realtor.com. That standard left many storm-affected homeowners responsible for their own repairs, a dynamic lawmakers tried to change during the 2025 legislative session when they introduced House Bill 599, known as the Fallen Tree Act, which would have shifted damage liability directly onto tree owners regardless of proven negligence. The bill died in committee in June 2025, per BillTrack50.
Florida statute does give property owners one proactive tool: under Florida Statute 163.045, single-family homeowners can prune or remove high-risk trees without local permits, fees, or mandatory replacement, provided an ISA-certified arborist or licensed landscape architect documents that the tree poses an unacceptable risk.
The Cleanup Burden Falls on Homeowners
Once a tree comes down on private property, Volusia County's emergency management policy is clear: municipal and county cleanup crews only clear vegetative debris from public rights-of-way, leaving private property owners fully responsible for hiring contractors to remove trees that crash onto their homes, according to Volusia County Government. The county does offer an online Residential Damage Assessment Portal where residents can submit photos and descriptions of structural damage to help officials fast-track state and federal disaster declarations, though county officials note those reports assist emergency management rather than replace a private insurance claim.
Certified arborists advising Florida property owners recommend thoroughly photographing a fallen tree's root plate, its point of structural failure, and surrounding property boundaries before any debris is cleared, according to Florida Foliage. That documentation can prove critical in establishing whether a tree showed pre-existing decay or collapsed strictly due to extreme weather — a distinction that often determines how an insurance claim, and a family's path to recovery, ultimately unfolds.
