If a tree fell on your roof, the order of operations is: get people out from under the damaged area, treat downed power lines as deadly, call 911 only if there are injuries, lines down or a gas smell, then call a roofer for emergency tarping and an arborist or tree service for removal. This guide covers that first day in detail for homeowners around Boring, Sandy, Gresham and the Gorge corridor, where Douglas firs, saturated winter soil and east wind put trees on roofs every storm season, and it explains how the insurance side usually works without pretending to be your insurance company.
Safety decisions come first
When to leave the house
A large tree through the roof structure is a structural event. If the trunk penetrated the roof, if walls have shifted, if doors suddenly jam, or if you hear the structure moving, get everyone out and stay out until someone qualified says otherwise. A limb resting on top of intact shingles is a different situation, and staying is usually fine. When in doubt, sleep somewhere else for one night; a house is repairable.
Power lines and gas
If the tree brought a line down, treat every wire as live and stay far away, including from fences and puddles it may be touching. Call your utility. PGE serves most of the east metro and takes downed-line reports around the clock. If you smell gas, leave first and call from outside.
The tree itself
A tree resting on a house is under load in ways that are hard to read from the ground. Limbs under tension can release violently when cut. Do not start up the chainsaw on anything touching the structure; that specific cut is what professional arborists train for.
The right order of phone calls
- 911 only for injuries, downed lines against the house, or gas.
- Your utility for any downed line, even in the yard.
- A roofer with emergency service to tarp and weatherproof the opening: that is us, at 971-251-ROOF, same-day for active situations.
- A tree service or certified arborist for removal off the structure. We work alongside them routinely; removal first, then the roof gets protected the same day.
- Your insurance company’s claim line, once people and property are safe. Most insurers take first notice by phone or app any hour of the day.
- Photos before anything moves, if it is safe to take them. The tree on the roof is the claim; the tree in a firewood pile is a story about a claim.
The sequence matters because each call protects the next one. The utility makes the site safe for the tree crew. The tree crew makes the roof safe for us. The tarp protects the interior while the insurance process runs at its own speed.
What emergency tarping actually involves
Once the tree is off, or if the damage is limb-scale and the roof is safe to access, the opening gets weatherproofed. A proper emergency cover is a heavy tarp anchored so the Gorge wind cannot get under it: wrapped and fastened at the ridge or to sound framing above the damage, lapped so water sheds over rather than under, and secured along every edge. Furring strips through the tarp into sound wood beat sandbags and bricks, which is what the wind removes first.
Structural punctures get more than a tarp. Broken decking and rafters are braced or covered with sheathing before the tarp goes over, so the cover has something to hold onto and the next storm cannot enlarge the hole. We photograph everything before and after, and that record goes to you.
A good tarp buys weeks, and it is still temporary. The permanent repair, from replacing a few shingles and a sheet of decking up to rebuilding a section of roof, gets scheduled once the scope and the insurance picture are clear. Most of the roofs we see after a tree strike are repairable; the strike zone is rebuilt and the rest of the roof carries on.
How the insurance side usually runs
Two general points that surprise people, both worth confirming with your own insurer. First, when a tree damages your house, it is normally your own homeowners policy that responds, and insurers explain it the same way whether the tree was yours or grew on the neighbor’s side of the fence. The main exception is negligence, such as a tree the neighbor had been warned in writing was dying. Second, policies commonly cover removal of a tree that damaged a covered structure, while a tree that fell harmlessly in the yard is often a smaller or uncovered cost. Insurer guides from companies like Progressive lay out the general pattern; your policy is the actual answer.
Your part of the process: report the claim promptly, take reasonable steps to prevent further damage, and keep receipts for all of it, including tarping and tree removal. Those steps are generally treated as part of the claim. The adjuster will want the photo record, and this is where the pictures taken before the tree moved earn their keep.
Our part: we tarp, we document, and we give you a written repair estimate you can submit. In Oregon a roofing contractor may not negotiate or adjust the claim itself; that is your conversation with the insurer, or a licensed public adjuster’s. Groups like United Policyholders publish free guides to how Oregon claims are supposed to run. And after every windstorm, be wary of door-knockers offering to make it all free; our guide to checking a contractor’s license explains the storm-chaser pattern.
The repair, from tarp to finished roof
Once the scope is agreed, the repair itself is usually quick. Damaged decking comes out sheet by sheet, broken rafters are sistered or replaced, underlayment and ice barrier go down, and shingles go on, matched as closely as the current product lines allow. On an older roof an exact match may be impossible, and we say so up front. If the roof was already near the end of its life, this is the moment to price a full replacement against a large repair; the instant estimator and our three Malarkey tiers make that comparison concrete rather than hypothetical.
Every repair we do comes with the same standards as a full roof: permits pulled where the work requires them, cleanup with a magnetic nail sweep, and photos of the finished work for your records.
Before the next storm: the tree audit
Most tree strikes we see were predictable. The east side of the metro grows big conifers close to houses, winter soil is saturated, and the Gorge wind loads the east and northeast sides of every tree. A walk around the house with those three facts in mind tells you a lot: dead or hanging limbs over the roof, trunks leaning toward the house, mushrooms or conks at the base, bare branches on one side. A certified arborist can assess anything questionable for less than a fraction of a deductible.
Trimming back overhanging limbs does double duty here, because the same branches that threaten the roof in a windstorm shade it into growing moss the rest of the year. Our roof moss guide and our storm season preparation checklist both come back to the same advice from different directions: manage the trees and you prevent the two most expensive things that happen to roofs here.
Limb strikes: the smaller, sneakier version
Most tree events on roofs are limbs rather than trunks, and they deserve their own habits. A limb that hits and slides rarely leaves a hole; it leaves a scour path, stripping granules and sometimes tearing shingles at the end of the slide where it caught an edge. From the ground the roof can look fine while the underlayment along the path takes over the waterproofing alone, which it can do for a few weeks and then quietly stop.
So after any limb comes down, even one you dragged off the roof yourself from a ladder at the eave, look at the path with binoculars: a lighter streak across the shingles, granules concentrated in the gutter below, a lifted edge at the end of the run. Photograph the limb and the path before cleanup. If the streak is obvious or shingles are torn, that is a repair call now rather than a leak call in January. A storm damage inspection with a photo report settles the question definitively, and it costs a phone call.
What this costs, and what softens it
We do not publish repair prices, because a tree repair runs from a few shingles to structural framing, and the honest number comes from the scope. What we can tell you is how the cost usually assembles: tree removal is its own bill from the tree service, emergency tarping and the roof repair are ours, and interior repair, if the water got in, is a third trade. When the event is covered, the deductible is often the homeowner’s whole out-of-pocket, which is why the documentation habits in this guide matter more than shopping any single line item.
If the strike zone sits on a roof that was already near the end of its life, run both numbers before authorizing a large repair. Insurers pay for the damage, and homeowners sometimes choose to put the repair payment toward the replacement they were two years from needing anyway. The instant estimator gives you the replacement figure in a minute, and our roof cost guide explains what drives it, so the repair-or-replace conversation happens with real numbers on both sides. Hearth financing can bridge a gap; pre-qualifying takes about a minute with no effect on your credit score.
Questions the adjuster will ask, answered in advance
When the claim call happens, the adjuster’s questions are predictable, and having answers ready shortens everything: when the tree came down and in what weather; whether it was yours or a neighbor’s; whether anyone had raised concerns about that tree before; what emergency steps you took and what they cost; whether the house is habitable; and what the damage looks like, which is where your photo set and our tarping documentation do the talking.
Keep a single folder, paper or phone, with the photos, the tree service invoice, our tarping and repair estimate, and every receipt. One folder, one story, no hunting. It is the same habit our contractor guide recommends for the roof paperwork generally, applied to one bad night.
Frequently asked questions
Who do I call first when a tree falls on my house?
People and power first: get everyone away from the damaged area, call 911 for injuries or downed lines, and call the utility for any line down. Then a roofer with emergency service to weatherproof the opening, a tree service for removal, and your insurer’s claim line.
Does homeowners insurance cover a tree falling on the roof?
Generally your own policy responds when a tree damages your house, whoever owned the tree, with negligence as the usual exception. Coverage details and deductibles are your insurer’s call under your policy, so report promptly and document everything.
Can you tarp my roof the same day?
That is what our same-day emergency service is for. If a tree is still on the structure, removal comes first, and we coordinate with tree services routinely so the opening is covered the same day the tree comes off.
Should I cut the tree off the roof myself?
No. Limbs under load release violently when cut, and a trunk resting on a structure can shift as weight comes off. Tree work on a building is a job for a professional crew with rigging.
Tree or limb on your roof right now? Call 971-251-ROOF for same-day emergency service in Boring, Sandy, Gresham, Damascus, Happy Valley, Estacada and Clackamas. Best Roofing USA LLC, Boring, Oregon. Oregon CCB 261305.
