Windstorm Downs Trees On Homes, Cars Across Northern Virginia

If his 4-year-old son, Anthony, had been sleeping in his bedroom Thursday night, he wouldn’t be alive today, Stafford resident Donnie Merrix said. Yesterday’s heavy winds caused a tree to fall on the roof of Merrix’s house off Mountain View Road in Stafford at about 6:15 a.m. The tree struck the upstairs bedrooms, “completely crushing” Anthony’s room, Merrix said. “If he’d been in his room, he’d be dead,” Merrix said. Thankfully, the boy slept in the basement with his older sister, Frances, 14, that night, because he wanted to watch some TV before going to bed.