As the blustering winds decimated portions of the Puget Sound, Karla Slate sat at home nursing a broken foot. The Covington marketing and communications manager kept expecting another call about the tree that has never seemed to catch a break.

“I’m at home, just saying, ‘please, I hope the tree is OK,’” she said. “Not again.”

The Covington Community Tree, located in the Don Henning roundabout between Fred Meyer and Pier One Imports, survived the latest storm while others fell, though its luck hasn’t exactly been great of late.

The city originally planted the symbolic spruce tree in 2012 in commemoration of the festive tree on Kent-Kangley Road that the fire department used to string lights on prior to the capital improvement project in that area, according to Ross Junkin, Covington maintenance supervisor.

The tree is primarily used during two lighting events — Purple Light Nights in October and for Christmas — but may best be known for the attempted Scrooge-esque caper in 2012, when police found that someone had attempted to cut down the tree on Christmas Eve. The city found the tree 3/4 way cut with a handsaw.

“It didn’t fall but it was standing mortally wounded,” Junkin said.

The city secured the tree for the lighting, but scrambled to find a new tree, which is difficult during that time of year. They settled for a mountain hemlock tree that, of course, started to die within the year. The city’s warranty allowed for a replacement.

That replacement Frasier fir tree remained standing until the night of Oct. 25, when winds pulled the tree out of the root system, after one of the cables that anchored the tree failed. Crews replanted the tree and secured it with three times as many anchors, saving the city from the cost of renting equipment and the labor hours of removing the lights and putting them up on a new tree.

Of course, Mother Nature returned fire Nov. 11 with roughly 60 mph winds that took down multiple trees and knocked out power around the region. Somehow, the community tree survived that storm.

“It would take a major hurricane wind to blow the thing down at this point,” Junkin said.

The existing tree still stands and will be able to stay up through the winter, but Junkin said the root system will not survive the heat of the summer. Junkin picked out a new roughly 27-foot tall Frazier fir from the same tree farm as the previous one, which is expected to be installed in February or March.

“You may not even be able to tell the difference,” Junkin said.

Junkin said the tree company offered to split the cost of the new tree with the city, leaving the city with a roughly $2,500 bill.

Finally, a little luck.