By Debra Vaughn

Staff reporter

Rick Marti was kicked back watching TV in his living room Saturday when Mother Nature delivered a nasty surprise.

The Coupeville man later said that he heard a “crack” and knew that he needed to get out of the house.

Before he could reach his front door, a gigantic Douglas fir slammed into the Marti home.

The force of it knocked him to the ground.

His gentle giant of a dog, Marley, bolted from the porch and galloped down the road like the devil was on her heels.

Marti and Marley are both OK. The family home is not.

The tree came down during an unusual late summer wind storm Saturday that packed gusts up to 70 mph.

Central Whidbey Island Fire & Rescue reported that firefighters responded to 29 calls, including the tree on the house, during the windstorm.

About 90 percent of the calls involved fallen power lines and fallen trees.

On Monday, the gigantic tree was still sprawled on top of the crushed home. Caution tape was strung around the house.

The tree slammed into the house so hard that javelin-like branches pierced the ceiling in one bedroom.

The kitchen and laundry room ceilings are bowed under the weight.

Marti and his fiancee, Glenda Campbell, said they are just glad nobody was hurt.

Yes, they’d just finished fixing up the kitchen and many of their possessions were destroyed.

“I think it’s God’s grace it didn’t get him,” she said. “We don’t know what the future holds, but we’re OK.”

With the recent coverage of wildfires ravaging other parts of the state, the couple is keeping things in perspective.

“We keep thinking about people who lost everything,” Campbell said.

The home was where Marti was raised with his nine siblings.

The original footprint of the house was built as a cabin in 1904, although his family moved in decades later.

They have insurance and hope the home can be fixed.

And they plan to have the other giant Douglas fir in their backyard cut down.

“What if he had died,” she said. “It brings me to tears.”