TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — As she walked through her front yard in the El Gheko neighborhood in Tucson, Margaret Buzzard stepped over wood from what used to be her mesquite tree.
“We’re all paying attention to the hail and then I look up and I’m like oh my god, my tree is gone,” she said about Friday’s storm.
Buzzard has had the mesquite tree for about 25 years. She said one of the branches was sticking out so long that you would think the tree was still standing if you stood across the street. That’s how massive she described it.
On Monday, her front yard was still littered with pieces of the wood, Buzzard getting emotional about how neighbors used to spend time with it.
“We were the Hobbit house and the kids would come and play under the tree. Our neighbor would park his car under the tree and now it’s gone,” she said.
When it collapsed because of the storm on Friday, about 25 neighbors came to support her.
“It was devastating. Everybody was hugging, everybody was comforting me,” she said.
Neighbors picked up their saws and electric equipment and helped her pick up the pieces, taking time out of their day and night to help their neighbor.
“Some that we didn’t even know helped us cut the tree to get it out of the road,” she said.
There were so many pieces left of the tree that neighbors had to put the wood in their yards too.
Saul Gibbs has lived in the neighborhood for about 11 years and had never met Buzzard. He helped her saw the pieces of the tree into smaller pieces.
“It’s just the neighborly thing to do. If something like that had happened to me, I would hope for a little help,” he said.
That kind of neighborly friendship is giving Buzzard the hope she needed. She’s giving the wood from the tree to her 14- year-old neighbor and her own daughter so they can make tables and clocks out of it.
“It brought a sense of community back. Where with the COVID and everything, everybody sort of went their way, but the community just gathered and helped us so immensely.”
Even though the tree might be gone, Buzzard and her neighbors, many of whom she didn’t know before the storm, have each other.
“It’s really a giving tree,” she said.
