Tour bus gets smashed by tree in Monterey Peninsula

The owner of a photo tourism company is out of business for now after a tree crushed his van as he was driving.

Andrew Spivey, who founded Pacific Coast Photo Guides, was driving home in his tour bus toward Pebble Beach on Tuesday when he decided to take the scenic route. But soon after, he started feeling branches hitting his roof very hard.

“Started to go for my gas pedal, actually, to try to get past it because I kind of felt it, but it was too late,” he said.

Those branches, it turns out, were attached to a tree that came crashing down into the street and right on top of his tour bus.

“The van lifted up from the back and it came back down and it landed hard enough to shatter the windows in the back,” said Spivey. “(The) airbags had exploded and then I had to like come to for a second, I mean it felt like I just got hit.”

Thankfully, he was the only one inside the van at the time of the accident, and was able to walk away with only minor burns and scratches.

Spivey just started his photo bus tourism business in August. He says the airbags did the most damage to the car, but the tree crushed the front end and smashed windows, which means his business is on hold for now.

“Without the van, I cannot operate and I’m contemplating now just how to put that back together,” he said.

But Spivey, who moved from San Jose to the more rural beauty of the Central Coast, says despite what happened it is all part of living in such a spectacular place.

“A second tree could fall on my car, and it’s just part of this place,” he said. “And this heavenly place requires some heavenly sacrifice, and I’m OK with that.”

Spivey says an insurance agent is taking a look at the car now. He is not sure if it is totaled, but says he cannot imagine driving that van again.