Woman dies after tree falls on car in Northeast Philadelphia amid high winds, police say
A woman was found dead after a tree fell onto her car in Northeast Philadelphia on Sunday, police said.
The 65-year-old woman was found in a gray Honda Accord on the 500 block of West Hill Creek Drive around 6:15 p.m. Sunday, Philadelphia police said. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The woman in the driver's seat was identified as Elizabeth Taylor. Police said the car was registered to an address near the crash, but it's unclear if the woman owned the vehicle.
"We was all like out here, like lifting the thing up, trying to get the tree off," Qahrr Timbers-Johnson said. "We tried to at least try to push the tree off the top of the car."
Elizabeth Balaguer, a neighbor and friend, says she was with Taylor earlier in the day at the Kimmel Center. There, "Sister Liz," as Balaguer called her, sang in a church concert.
"There's just so much that you ask yourself. The want ifs," Balaguer said. "Just knowing that I told her I was going to spend the whole day with her, and just that's guilt I'm going to carry with me all my life."
Through tears, Balaguer shared that Taylor was a mother and grandmother and devoted to her church. She was a woman with a "heart of gold."
"She loves the lord, and when you love the lord that much and you're such a lovable person," Balaguer said, "when you lose somebody like that, it's like, how do you get over it? How do you not think about that person every day?"
Many people living in the Hill Creek Apartments community remain in shock hours after Taylor died.
"I couldn't sleep at night," Constance Jones said. "This is really sad, like this lady just lost her life for nothing."
"It was a real tragedy for Liz because she was well-known in our community," Yvette Sullivan said. "She was a church woman."
A neighbor who didn't know the woman who died was heartbroken by the incident.
"I feel for anybody that lose their life like this, anybody," she said. "We all got to come together, pray and everything, you know what I'm saying? It's sad."
The Delaware Valley is experiencing high winds that are knocking down trees and wires around the region, causing power outages, flight disruptions and road closures. Wind gusts in Northeast Philadelphia reached at least 63 mph Sunday.
Police are investigating the incident.
A Philadelphia Housing Authority spokesperson called what happened a "tragic accident," adding they're supporting police with the investigation.
