One instant you're going about your daily life.  The next moment, you're without a home.

That's what has happened to one family in Danville. And it may stay that way for a year.

"It's crazy," said John Salamida as he watched crews survey the damage to his house on bucolic Laurel Drive. "You're homeless overnight. It's eye-opening."

The Salamida family saga began last Thursday on, ironically, Earth Day.  That's when a nearly 300-year-old oak tree in their back yard toppled onto the roof of their house.  It sheared off the chimney and damaged their home office and children's play area.

No one was home, so no one was hurt.  Salamida, a commercial broker, was at work. So was his wife, Lori, a paralegal at a Danville real estate company. Neither were their two children, Jake, 12, and Zach, 10. Only the family dog, Bailey, was inside the house. He was spooked but not injured.

"It could have been a lot worse," said Salamida. "It happened 45 minutes before the kids got home from school."

On Tuesday morning, the rain didn't keep work crews from cleaning up the mess.  A large crane and two large tree-trimming trucks were parked in front of the red-tagged home.

Salamida talked with workers in the back yard. They surveyed a second oak tree that also must come down because it shares a root system with the one that fell.  Another oak on the side yard is being inspected to see if it too will face the axe.

Salamida said it'll probably be a year before he and his family can move back in. After all the tree debris is cleared away, the roof will be torn off and the walls will be knocked down to inspect for structural damage. After that, the rebuilding process can begin.

Meanwhile, life goes on for the Salamida family.  John and Lori still need to go to work. The two boys need to go to school.  The kids also play on youth sports teams, so the purchasing of new cleats will still be done this week.

The family is staying at a hotel in Danville while their Farmers Insurance agent looks for temporary housing. That's not an easy thing to find in a town where rental homes are at a premium and many owners are requiring one-year leases.

"Everything has been uprooted," Salamida said while surveying the large tree chunks laying around his home.