The girls, a 3-month-old and a 3-year-old, were pronounced dead at the scene, said Battalion Chief Sebastian Carrillo of Birmingham Fire and Rescue. An 11-year-old boy and two women suffered “significant” injuries, he added, while five other people in the house escaped unhurt. The relationships between those involved were unclear. Chief Carrillo said he did not know the type of tree that fell, but described it as “much taller than a telephone pole” and as thick and wide as a “small sedan.” The two women who were injured were found close to each other on the ground floor, trapped under the tree, Chief Carrillo said. One of them, he continued, was sitting on a deck chair. To prevent further injury, authorities removed them from under the tree by cutting the floor beneath them and lowering them into a net installed in the basement, Chief Carrillo said. The incident occurred early Thursday night as a severe thunderstorm, which included lightning, swept through the Birmingham area, bringing heavy rain and winds of up to 70 miles per hour, according to the National Weather Service, which urged people to stay off the roads. More than 50,000 people were without power Thursday night, according to an outage map. Chief Carrillo said the storm dumped a lot of rain on Birmingham in a short period of time, which led to flooding. Residents of the home where the tree fell — in Birmingham’s west College Hills neighborhood — heard a “big bang” they thought was lightning striking the tree, Chief Carrillo said. That’s when five of the 10 people inside the house managed to escape. Authorities were alerted by a 911 call at 5:35 p.m., in which a woman screamed that she couldn’t breathe and that she and other people were trapped. Birmingham authorities know how to deal with trees that fall on homes during storms, Chief Carrillo said, but added that in a 28-year career as a firefighter, this episode seemed extraordinary because of the number of people they had to take care of. “I don’t remember so many people participating in one of these rescues,” he said.
