CANNON BEACH, Ore. — A family visiting Cannon Beach from Salt Lake City, Utah, survived a scary moment Saturday night when a large alder tree came crashing down in their campsite, landing on top of the family's van.
Shawn Snow, his wife, and their five children were staying at Wright's Campground in Cannon Beach. The parents were sleeping inside the van and the children were sleeping in a tent about five feet away. A couple hours after they'd gone to bed, the tree fell down onto the family's van shortly before midnight.
Thankfully, nobody was hurt.
KGW's Laural Porter was camping with family in the neighboring campsite. She said "the sound of the tree cracking and falling was one of the most terrifying things I've heard." She spoke to the family Sunday morning.
"We were actually totally asleep, and then I felt the car bouncing and shaking all over," Shawn told KGW. "I thought somebody was outside the car, pranking us or something. I got out of the car, looked around, and almost went back in the car to go back to bed, and then somebody told us to look up, and there was a tree on the car."
PHOTO GALLERY: Tree falls onto family's van in campsite
Tree falls onto family's van in campsite at Cannon Beach
Shawn's wife said the tree shook the van so much, she thought she was waking up to the van rolling down an embankment.
"I thought we were bouncing down the hill and we were going to die," she said. "I'm glad that we didn't."
One of the kids said the experience was "super scary."