When is a falling tree lucky?

When it saves a family from another tree that crashes through their home.

Around 2 p.m. Monday, in the middle of Hurricane Gustav, Chad Romero, his sister Phyllis Broussard and Phyllis’ husband, Donovan, had just left their trailer and gotten into their truck, parked under their carport, to see the tree they’d heard falling across the street.

Chad Romero, left, helps David Pacher, a visiting crewman with CenterPoint Energy from Texas, removes a downed power line to the demolished mobile home on Acadian Street Wednesday in New Iberia. -- Bill Smith / The Daily Iberian Advertisement

That’s when a tree fell from behind their mobile home on Squirrel Run Golf Course, cracking the branch off another tree. Both fell into the structure — and into the bedroom where Phyllis Broussard was sitting just moments before.

“I freaked out,” Phyllis said. “I never imagined. You see it on TV, but I never experienced it. The little that I did have, I lost it.”

She has lived in the mobile home at 107 Acadian St., which is owned by her father, Paul, for 16 years — since she was 13 years old. She moved there immediately after Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992. The mobile home suffered tree damage then, as well.

Phyllis said she began to cry and called her sister, who had evacuated to Texas. Her sister called the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office.

Donovan and Chad entered the mobile home to inspect the damage while Phyllis stayed in the front room.

Deputies arrived when they could, but the storm was winding down. The family elected to stay in their mobile home because of their dogs and because the only shelter in Iberia Parish was at the jail.

Chad said he has given Phyllis and Donovan his room and is sleeping on the sofa. He said he’ll most likely move to his brother’s place.

Chad said they did not leave because they didn’t want any of their four pit bulls to get loose and bite anyone.

“Animals are family, too, I guess,” he said.

Donovan said he did not want to leave because he was worried about vandals.

Phyllis said she did not want to leave because of her 10-year-old pit bull. “That’s my baby,” she said.

“I stayed in the trailer before (for hurricanes) and it didn’t seem to be that bad,” she said. “I thought it would have been all right ... but you just never know. Thank God for our lives. I’m leaving next time.”