FAIRHOPE – If a tree falls on Fairhope Avenue, will it make a sound? For Mr. and Mrs. Alan Machek, the answer is yes.

The Fairhope couple was sitting in their car waiting on heavy rainfall to subside late Friday afternoon, Aug. 24, when 40-plus mph winds toppled a Bradford pear tree, bringing it down atop their parked 2001 Chevrolet Impala.

The rear of the car’s roof was crushed, the rear glass broken and the trunk rendered inoperable. Trapped inside were the Machek’s purchases from their downtown shopping excursion. The couple was unhurt, however.

Cpl. Craig Sawyer of the Fairhope Police Department said the initial incident call came in at 4:15. Because the Macheks were sitting in their car when the tree fell, some worried decorative lights strung in the tree prior to the Christmas shopping season last year might pose a threat of electrical shock.

“There were concerns,” Sawyer said, noting officers who responded discovered that the electrical connection had snapped along with the tree’s roots. No damage estimates were available prior to press time Tuesday.

Gary Beeler, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Mobile, said the tree likely fell victim to the southernmost edge of a strong thunderstorm that was passing through the upper Eastern Shore at the time.

“With these storms, when they come to the ground, it creates outflow boundaries. They can move miles away from any rain,” he said. “It’s like a pebble in a river. Most of the time, they’re a little bit strange – these semicircles.”

Beeler said more such outflows than normal have been recorded this year, probably because the technology has advanced to the point they’re easier to spot. He pointed out their effects are indiscriminate.

“Usually it doesn’t pick on any one thing. Spanish Fort and Daphne had 60 to 65 mph winds,” Beeler said. The force of the wind in Fairhope could have been intensified by the canyon effect of buildings lining Fairhope Avenue between Section and Church streets, he said.

According to Beeler, the pear tree might have been an easy target because it could have sustained unseen damage from hurricanes in 2004 and 2005. Many trees in Biloxi have fallen during recent thunderstorms because they were weakened two years ago when Hurricane Katrina devastated portions of the northern Gulf Coast.

Fairhope Public Works Director Jennifer Fidler said Bradford pear trees “have a good root system. Typically their branches break. It’s not a long-lived tree in the city.”

She said the downtown trees are pruned every fall before the lights are strung in their canopy.

The tree that fell Friday had been heavily trimmed on the side that faced the nearby businesses, in order to keep limbs from damaging the building it shaded.