Rich Canning was sound asleep on June 8 at 1 a.m. when he was awakened by an alarmingly loud bang. Two more sharp bangs followed a couple of seconds later, and when the third one went off, Canning jumped out of bed and realized something was seriously wrong. He looked up and clearly saw the night sky through foot after foot of his bedroom roof.
It was then he realized there was a massive tree branch poking through the ceiling.
“I knew the branch had gone through the ceiling there was no doubt in my mind, and then I noticed some leaves fluttering up there,” Canning said. “That just assured me I had a tree come down on my house.”
When asked if at first he thought the bangs might have been a bad dream, he said he knew something had really happened. But the bangs were a shock since he had been deep in sleep and hadn’t heard the storm raging. “I was dead to the world,” Canning said.
When he left the bedroom he noticed that his wife was already up. She woke up earlier because their dog was irritated by the noise.
“I went out and opened the front door and all I could see was just a wall of rain water,” Canning said. “I’ve got plants hanging up out there and they were just spinning and flying around. Then I went to shut the door and I heard this enormous roar and the wind just grabbed that door and slammed it shut really hard. And I knew something was really wrong and I hadn’t experienced that before.”
The tree branches in their backyard looked as if they had been snapped off the trees. Canning thought it might have been lightning but there were no burn marks on the tree. “So I think it was just hellacious winds.”
There were limbs torn off many of the trees in his yard, but not like the huge burr oak, which he believes has been there for about 200 years. Burr oaks have been described as tough trees for tough places.
He had just put up a new pergola on his deck with a roof and curtains a few days before the storm hit. He and his wife enjoyed it for a couple of afternoons and evenings, but the storm destroyed it.
“We had one up last year just like it and it was fastened down with tie wraps and it withstood the whole year since we don’t get tornadoes and high winds like this,” Canning said. “So this one I just screwed into the deck and it pulled the boards and all up.” All his hanging plants around the deck right next to the pergola were not damaged at all. “Not one of them was knocked off. We have a few trees near there and they were all fine too.”
A large amount of dark cellulose, which is used for insulation, dropped from the ceiling and collected like black sand on the floor of the bedroom.
“Sheetrock was also knocked off, and later more of it fell down,” Canning said. He later found that a branch had also made a hole over the bathroom, but that sheetrock never came down.
He, his son and grandson helped to clean up the branches and leaves in the yard so they could walk through, and get around the area. Tree companies are doing most of the heavy work.
“I have some more I will have to clean up since the insurance won’t cover it because it’s not next to the house,” Canning said. “Neighbors also had a lot of tree damage with branches down. You drive up and down Carmack and most everybody had a pile of branches that came down. Some had more than others and the city is getting them picked up. The city was really good about removing it and they will be coming back until they are all picked up. Thank you to the city.”
Only about a quarter of the bedroom got wet, but he probably lost a lot of belongings under the cellulose that got wet and possibly mildewed. “We couldn’t believe how little water got in there,” Canning said. “I know that bedroom’s carpeting is going to be ruined.”
Other homes in the area were badly damaged also and tarps can be seen on several roofs. A few houses down from the Canning home a neighbor has a big tarp up and a big tree that’s almost dead. “I’m sure he has people working on it,” Canning said.
He was told repairs to his home might take about six months, but he is thinking it will be more like two weeks to a month.
“The roofer implied they would replace the whole roof because the roof is getting old enough and about half of it didn’t get touched but a lot of times they end up replacing the whole thing because they can’t get a match on it,” Canning said. The Cannings have lived in the home since 1991. Canning said a tornado about 15 or 20 years ago tore a big branch off the same tree that touched the floor of his deck but didn’t touch the house.
“When my wife realized what had happened it scared the devil out of her,” Canning said. “She’s still scared. She had COVID at that same time. She’s getting better though.”
Although their dog didn’t get too excited when the tree branch came through the roof, he wanted to go around the house and check things out.
“The last dog we had would have been crying and whining but this one is a lot more stable,” Canning said. “I kept my eye out for my cat who was outside and she showed up and came back to get fed. She got cover somewhere. When it gets warmer she likes to stay outside more.”
Canning believes that one of the stronger branches below the one that crashed through the roof broke its fall. “If not for that branch cushioning the fall of the upper branch it might have crushed the whole side of the house. I’m not sure what would have happened but I’m pretty sure there would have been more damage. It could have been much worse, God blessed me. It’s one strong tree. There’s another one just like it about 30 feet away and it wasn’t hurt at all. Both, from what I read in conservation magazines are probably 200 years old. Platte County has a lot of hill tops that are solid rock and it takes a long time for trees like these to get down through that rock but once they get down through it, they stay forever. The only ones that get down through it are good trees like them.”
Canning is an eternal optimist and credits his positive attitude and strength to hard work, starting when he was growing up on the family farm, and his three years of military service. At age 7, he began working on the farm in order to be able to purchase a bicycle, and he decided to keep working on the farm to help his family. After his military service he went to school and studied radar repair.
A week before the storm he had undergone surgery to have two stints put in. He has had eight stints put in over the last 30 years.
“Stints don’t really hurt that much and they give you a lot of energy when you have them put in because you can breathe better and you get more oxygen into your body,” Canning said. “I felt like God took care of me. God tests us and I just keep my faith, take care of my house and get it fixed and I will go to church Sunday and get to visit with all my friends.”
For now the Cannings are renting a house in Parkville until their home is repaired.
“It shouldn’t take long to get the roof structurally sound,” Canning said. “People live in a house while they are putting the shingles on so I think it will be sooner rather than later.”
As the Cannings deal with the damage and the aftermath, they are just grateful to be alive. To commemorate their 52nd wedding anniversary on June 13, the one thing Rich wanted to ensure was that they went out and had a wonderful meal and celebrated their many years as a family.