NATCHEZ — Residents across Natchez were plagued by trees downed by Gustav’s powerful winds on Monday night.

Sarah Salmon, a Pearl Street resident, said she was shocked when an enormous oak tree fell through the side of her house.

“I had no idea what it was,” she said. “I just heard a huge crash.”

Oddly, Salmon said even after the tree invaded her home she did not lose power.

“The television was on and the air kept running,” she said.

Salmon said she did not lose electricity until the entire city lost power later in the night.

And while the tree completely demolished one room of the house, broken ceiling throughout the house allowed water to leak in and saturate most of the night.

“I never dreamed this could happen,” she said.

Much of Salmon’s day on Tuesday was spent with a small army of friends and family who helped her to salvage her undamaged possessions.

“I’ll just be staying with family for a while now,” she said.

While Salmon’s moving out of her home, some cross-town residents will be confined to their home for quite some time.

Several residents in the Glenwood Drive area were trapped when a series of trees, entangled in power lines, were blown down and blocked the street.

Glenwood resident, Rusty Jenkins, said luckily he was out on an errand when the trees came crashing down in the evening.

His vehicle was outside the blocked street.

But Jenkins estimated 18 houses to be in the tree-clogged loop.

“It’s never been like this,” he said. “It’s going to take a while to get this cleaned.”

But Jenkins said he was not overly concerned about the mess of tangled lines and trees.

“We have a generator,” he said.

The Presbyterian Manse — the minister’s residence — at Westminster Presbyterian Church was also badly damaged by a fallen tree.

From the house’s bedroom daylight poured in and a large limb tore through the wall to the adjacent room.

Church member Philip Chaffin said the church was lucky to be without a preacher when the storm struck since that preacher would have been housed in the manse.