Normally in bed by 5 pm, at 5:30 a neighbor's tree crashed into her bedroom: 'God told me to stay'
'I was on the porch, and I was soaking wet. I was screaming,' Randall recounted
The Hand of God. Many have testified to having witnessed such acts, but only a few may have truly been fortunate enough to be at the receiving end. When a powerful storm hit Jacksonville, Pamela Randall may have been one such fortunate recipient. Although, this one might well be described as the Voice of God. On Saturday, Randall did something she normally never would: she stayed in the living room to finish a movie instead of going to bed. Moments later, a tree crashed through the bedroom where she would usually have been. Randall believes a voice telling her to stay put may have saved her life, as she relayed in a July 13, 2026, interview with News4Jax.
Voice of God
Randall explained that, being terrified of trees, she doesn’t have them on her property. Unfortunately for her, her neighbour does, and it was their tree that crashed into her bedroom. But the real cliffhanger was what happened on that particular day. Usually, Randall is in her bedroom by 5 p.m., but on this day, something persuaded her to just stay put and finish the movie she was watching. “God told me to stay here, finish watching my movie,” Randall later said. Between 6 and 6:30 pm, a tree from her neighbour’s yard toppled down and crashed on her bed, destroying it. If she had been on the bed, she wouldn’t be alive right now. “I was on the porch, and I was soaking wet. I was screaming. I was screaming, and nobody heard me,” Randall recounted.
A roofing contractor with Danztler Group, Bryan Widmayer, explained that heavy rain may have filled a tree limb with water, leaving it vulnerable to strong winds that could cause it to snap.
Aftermath of howling winds
According to the Florida Climate Center, Florida is quite vulnerable to devastation during the six-month-long Atlantic Hurricane season that runs between June 1 and November 30, with activity typically peaking between mid-August and late October. Typically, a tropical storm moves around with an average speed of 39 to 73 miles per hour, in contrast to the faster hurricanes. For Randall, it was a lucky day, but as per a study published in Nature Communications, exposure to tropical cyclones was associated with an average 8.7% increase in injury-related hospitalizations during the week that followed.
'He had me!'
Meanwhile, Randall believes that it’s her faith in God that saved her life. “Emotional, stressed and drained, and I cried for two days,” she said. “I didn’t sleep for two days. I finally got some rest last night.” She reflects that a lot of people didn't wake up the next morning, but "He had me!"
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