With winds gusting at hurricane force, Mochi was getting nervous. He started whining, as puppies often do when things don’t seem right.
“He saved my life,” said Sara DeSante, who was napping shortly before a gigantic Douglas fir came crashing through the roof of her Forest Knolls home on Sunday, Feb. 4. “If it weren’t for this puppy needing my attention, I could have been lying there when it fell.”
Ms. DeSante made it outside before the 130-foot tree smashed through the living room ceiling, splitting the house in half. Her husband, Forest, and their 5-year-old son, Jalen, were at a birthday party in Petaluma at the time.
One week later, the DeSantes are pondering their next steps, and their neighbors are stepping up. A GoFundMe campaign was set up on their behalf by one of Ms. DeSante’s best friends, Sierra Aizer, who was astounded when she saw a video of the aftermath.
“This is beyond anything I could imagine,” Ms. Aizer said. “It’s a level-10 situation.”
Ms. DeSante was getting nervous before she dozed off, but she tossed a log on the fire and tried to remain calm, stretching out on the living room couch. “I had never experienced wind gusts like that,” she said. “I felt like the whole house could get blown away.”
At about 2:30 p.m., moments after Mochi started whining, she heard a violent cracking sound, and the ground shifted as it might during an earthquake. She took off with the puppy in her arms and headed for a door at the opposite end of the house. Her older dog, Akiela, followed close behind. “The tree was falling, and I just didn’t know if it was going to fall on me,” she told the Light.
Friends are putting the DeSantes up for the time being, but they need to find a house to rent. The couple has homeowners insurance, but it isn’t clear whether it will cover the costs of repairing their 1,200-square-foot-cabin, which they had moved into just six months before the storm.
Mr. DeSante grew up in West Marin. His father, Dave DeSante, who died less than two years ago, was a renowned birder and ornithologist. His mother, herbalist Eden Clearbrook, owned an apothecary in town for 25 years.
After Forest and Sara inherited the house from his father, they spent several months renovating it with the help of contractor friends before moving in. “We did a lot of work to really make it our home, somewhere we could be really comfy,” Mr. DeSante said. “It’s crazy. Now we’ll do it all over again.”
Mr. DeSante works as a real estate agent and Ms. DeSante has her own business making skin care products, which she produces from home. In their short time in Forest Knolls, they have made many friends. Sara is a regular at the San Geronimo Valley Community Center and Forest coaches a Little League team.
“They’re just salt-of-the-earth people,” said Ms. Aizer, who has been gratified by the community response to the GoFundMe campaign. “Their presence is felt, and they’re always willing to go above and beyond. They’re going to face a lot of hurdles and obstacles, and we wanted to give them some breathing room.”
The GoFundMe for the Desantes is at http://tinyurl.com/helpforestsarajalen. Send housing leads to [email protected].