Mountain of tumbleweed engulfs senior citizen's home in Washington
A home has been swamped under a 15ft heap of tumbleweed blown along by 60mph winds.
Dick Wilde, 73, was stunned to find his home in Kennewick Washington covered in vast amounts of weeds, which he said had blown over from fields nearby.
The retired nuclear engineer’s house is located upwind meaning the tumbleweeds have piled up in around his house.
"They all blew into my yard on Sunday night from the wheat farms,
"The wind was strong enough to pick them up and blow them right into my yard," Mr Wilde explained to the Daily Mail.
He said that the stack reaches right to the top of his house and that it will take him at least a week to clean the weeds away.
The retiree lives in Kennewick Washington with his wife and his three grandchildren.
The report said that Mr Wilde has reached out to his local community to ask for help to clear the stacks away.
He expressed fear that the stacks could catch fire and burn down his home.
"It is a fire hazard and they could go up in flames like a piece of paper. I need to have them cleared as soon as I can," he said.
Disruption caused by avalanches of tumbleweed is more common than it may seem.
The plant detaches from its root to spread its seeds when caught in the wind and can easily cause problems for countryside communities.
Mr Wilde said in the report that the town’s tumbleweed troubles are worse than they have been more than 20 years.
In January, several drivers became trapped in a 30ft wave of tumbleweed in Richland, an event described online as ‘tumblegeddon.’
Hundreds of balls of weed blew along the Washington state highway, in a similar avalanche to that at Mr Wilde's house, and patrol troopers had to dig through the night to rescue drivers.
