The winds that brought down an 80-year-old oak tree were ferocious.
The injuries it inflicted on an elderly woman below were fatal, she was simply sheltering from the squalls in Cambridge's town square.
"I saw the lightning, it was like fork lightning out there and then the thunder went right across!" One person said.
Emergency services arrived in minutes, and police cordoned off the scene as the victim lay beneath the mighty Oak fighting for her life.
Around a dozen firefighters worked quickly to free the woman, as they jacked the tree up with wooden blocks one of them went in thigh-deep to try and free her.
A delicate race against the clock, not lost on Richard Millett and his wife Trixie.
They had parked their campervan metres from the tree just after it came down and went for coffee unaware only to return to the unfolding emergency.
"They were digging which was a futile task unless someone was trapped," Richard said.
Despite a 45-minute rescue effort, the woman died this afternoon in Waikato hospital.
Round the corner, builder Connor Cooke and a colleague were finishing up renovations in this house when they had a lucky escape.
Their two work vehicles though, are a write-off.
"Some crazy wind outside and heard a big bang and that's the result," Cooke said.
Homeowner Mike Beuvink is frustrated, as trees all over Cambridge have been weakened in recent storms and he worries the Waipa District Council has failed to take it seriously.
"You can see a rope up there in one of these branches and there's another rope there, it was held together by a piece of rope," Beuvink said.
But the Council says it's not just an ordinary rope, it's bracing used by arborists around the world to secure a tree and allow it to grow.
Clearly, not even that was strong enough for a big blow that in this town, has now claimed one life.
