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Local residents clean up after damage from Friday’s severe weather

Posted at 1:39 PM, Feb 21, 2014
and last updated 2014-02-22 22:45:23-05

CHESTERFIELD, Va. (WTVR)--The heavy storms which pummeled parts of Central Virginia and brought brief tornado warnings also caused serious damage in their wake.

David Henderson of Chesterfield said fire officials were called to a home off of Jeff Davis Highway after a tree fell on and destroyed the back deck and puncturing the roof. Henderson said he was shaken after seeing the damage.

"It's terrible because they weren't even home when it happened,” Henderson said. "I'm always concerned because our house has never been hit, but we have a lot of those old trees in back. If they fell, they'd go right into our house.”

Further South in Matoaca, George Oliver was up against even more damage when the storm hit. Oliver had one tree fall dangerously close to his driveway.

"It's scary because you're looking at the trees bending over and hope they don't come down on your house,” he said.

However, Oliver says he's even more concerned about a massive tree that's leaning on a power line at Winterpock and Beach Road. Neighbors in the area say they have experienced outages that had them in the dark for several days at a time.

CBS 6 reached out to Dominion Virginia Power to ask when the tree would be removed, but have yet to hear back from them.

At the height of Friday’s storm, roughly 12,000 Dominion customers in the Richmond metro area were without power.

Many other homeowners suffered from storm damage as well after Friday's severe weather.

A home in the 600 block of Pinetta Drive home, off Midlothian,  has been deemed unsafe after a tree crashed into it.  Two people were home at the time and said the sound was overwhelmingly loud, almost like a train or heavy object hitting the house.

All the kids were at school at the time, though a total of six people are now displaced.

The tree fell onto the den area of the home.

In Dinwiddie, one couple experienced "sheer terror" as the storm barreled through. Heavy rains and hail pummeled their trailer, and then the tree came through the roof.

All around the Richmond metro trees were uprooted, and houses and cars crushed by collapsing trees. Click on the videos for a look at the damage around Central Virginia.

A majority of the people interviewed today said that they were all surprised by how fast the storm moved.