Mantecan Marva Buettner takes a deep breath whenever she talks about her brush with death when a 70-foot-high, 100-year-old pine tree destroyed her double-wide mobile home and totaled her Buick La Sabre early last month in Greeley Hill.

It was nothing short of a miracle that no one was killed, she said.

Retired from the San Joaquin County Department of Public Health, Buettner had recently sold her mountain residence and was preparing to move the last of her belongings back to Manteca.

On her way up the hill she had headed for her Stitches Class at the seniors’ building in Greeley Hill arriving at about 10:30 a.m. finding the power had gone out at her home in the Wampum Hill Mobile Home Park due to the high winds.

She had intended to load her car for the last moving trip to Manteca saying she was going to take advantage of the last weekend that she could stay in her “home away from home.”

She said a friend had called her and said that several trees were down and because of that he wouldn’t be over to see her off. She said had he come over they would have shared a dinner right where the tree crashed through her ceiling, undoubtedly killing them both.

Home and without lights at about 4 p.m., she searched for candles to provide at least a minimum amount of light. Finding none she had gone to the Greeley Market to replenish her supply that would carry her through the night.

When she got back and stepped out of her car, she found a small flashlight that she took with her into the mobile home – a flashlight that would be in her left hand when the tree split her home in two.

“I had Swiss steak on the stove cooking and I ate at 5 p.m. Lo and behold the power came back on at 6 p.m. so I blew out the candle. A short time later the lights flickered, so I walked to the kitchen to get another candle and again picked up the small flashlight. On my way to return to the living room, I got as far as the front door when I was hit on the head (by falling debris) and then came a tremendous roar and I was thrown to the floor,” she said.

Buettner said she at first thought it was an earthquake as there was tremendous wind circling and debris flying through the air. She remembers picking herself up and trying the front door which she said was jammed.

It was pitch black at 6:30 p.m. so she turned on her flashlight and saw that the tree had crashed through the ceiling just inches from where she had been standing. She saw that the ceiling was caved in and realized she was trapped, She soon saw an opening where the drapes were blowing to the outside and cold air was coming into her home.

She did not have shoes or socks as she made her way to the opening and crawled outside and onto the street.

“My thoughts were that I would probably have to break a window and that would have been bad with no shoes and broken glass. The two large front windows were shattered. I thought later that if that tree would have had branches I wouldn’t be alive today,” she recalled.

Her 2002 Buick La Sabre was parked in the attached carport and was totaled by the tree that struck the rear of the passenger area and the trunk. A neighbor offered her the keys to an extra car he had by his mobile home. Another neighbor provided her with a pair of pajamas and a pair of slippers having taken her to her home so she could make necessary telephone calls. Two men living nearby were quick to shut off the propane tanks to prevent any chance of fire as well as cutting the water and the power sources.

“It was devastating to see the damage to my coach, but I just had to focus and feel that I was so blessed to be alive. With the destruction of two coaches and no injuries it was a miracle to be alive,” she said.

The next morning two men tried her back door which was locked and she told them to crawl to her car for extra keys. They were able to unlock the door and retrieve her purse and valuables.

As a widow living by herself she said it was definitely “A December to Remember” having to deal with homeowner insurance, coach demolition, and tree removal, car insurance, car repair, new vehicle, moving of furniture, the cancellation of the sale of the coach and Christmas.