Photo: Debbie Bourassa

Debbie Bourassa’s 2007 Ford Taurus was crushed by a falling tree during Friday’s storm. The Parnell Apartments resident had just returned home from coffee with her father when the storm picked up.

The thought that she might have been in her car when it was crushed by a tree during a storm sent Kamloops resident Debbie Bourassa into a panic.

“It was scary. I’m devastated,” Bourassa told Castanet Kamloops.

On Friday evening, Kamloops was hit by a severe thunderstorm with strong wind gusts that downed numerous trees throughout the city, including one in the parking lot of the Parnell Apartments.

Bourassa, who lives in the apartments, said she had just arrived and was walking into her building when the winds picked up that evening.

She had returned from having coffee with her father and parked at the edge of the tree-lined parking lot on the banks of the Thompson River.

Bourassa didn’t realize the tree had fallen on her car until her brother came home that evening and told her it had been damaged in the storm.

“I thought he was joking, but no, it’s not a joke,” Bourassa said.

She said the tree smashed the roof of her burgundy 2007 Ford Taurus and she has been deeply affected since the incident.

“My car is totally damaged – it’s terrible,” Bourassa said. The tree that hit her car also damaged two others in the parking lot.

She said the trees along the parking lot have been a problem for residents of the apartment complex for some time, adding that the tree that hit her car should have been removed last year.

She said her brother-in-law had warned that the tree had to be cut down or someone might be killed.

“And sure enough, it fell over,” she said, noting that beavers in the area had been nibbling on trees near the parking lot.