Storm damage

Exhausted.....used the electric chain saw to clear one of our island roads.  High winds and lightening last night.   The grandkids wanted their morning golf cart ride when my wife found a huge maple down where usually we have friends camp.   It would have killed anybody who had set up a tent in this area.   The Grandkids think it is an adventure .They wonder why i am so tired......cleared the road, and will slowly attack the bigger limbs for firewood, and then take the bobcat and move the balance to a burn pile to dry and then burn.   I gave up on the gas chain saw two years ago because I was too weak, but this electric chain saw ran off our generator from a trailer connected to the ATV is the cat's meow.....just do not have the strength, and the girls wanted to know what was wrong.......I am thinking what is right to let me even try this.....oh well....a price will be paid.

This maple tree looked healthy. Once it was down, you could see rot at the base. Most of the branches I cut were healthy and without rot of any kind. A hundred people are killed by trees every year in America.

2seaoat wrote:This maple tree looked healthy.   Once it was down, you could see rot at the base.  Most of the branches I cut were healthy and without rot of any kind.   A hundred people are killed by trees every year in America.

I'm just glad no one was hurt. My neighbor cut down a live oak recently and the entire base of the trunk was hollow...up to about the 5' mark. I am surrounded by trees. I had a really close call during Katrina, believe it or not. The winds couldn't have been over 60 mph, but the top of an oak came down between my house and the shed...about 30' long. Thing is...I was contemplating starting a load of laundry and was looking out the screen door when it happened...very freaky...and it knocked down the power line between the house and shed...Some friends came by the next morning bright and early and had the tree cut up and hauled away and the power line rehung (which BTW is now buried).

After Ivan I cleared four lots to build some houses. The Pine trees had faced the blowing wind of Ivan. I am used to thirty years of taking down hardwoods. I learned some lessons with monster pines. You cannot guarantee where a pine tree will fall. I would see a tree looking like it was leaning to the south. I would cut a notch to the south and do a typical angle cut to my notch.......well these pines would go north south east and west.....I cleared everything except small oaks which high winds usually just tip over at the root ball and do not come crashing through your home like the pine off 29 in Century from the last tornado. I would rather pay a higher energy cost being tree free than deal with high winds and falling trees.

2seaoat wrote:After Ivan I cleared four lots to build some houses.   The Pine trees had faced the blowing wind of Ivan.   I am used to thirty years of taking down hardwoods.   I learned some lessons with monster pines.   You cannot guarantee where a pine tree will fall.  I would see a tree looking like it was leaning to the south.  I would cut a notch to the south and do a typical angle cut to my notch.......well these pines would go north south east and west.....I cleared everything except small oaks which high winds usually just tip over at the root ball and do not come crashing through your home like the pine off 29 in Century from the last tornado.   I would rather pay a higher energy cost being tree free than deal with high winds and falling trees.

During one of our hurricanes....I think Erin, we watched our neighbors huge oak tree fall. It was a slow process of watching the tree tip and the ground moving up. It just eased itself over. Again, this was an entire tree uprooting not a crashing limb.

The oaks in the panhandle are a great tree to have near the house because of the surface root system usually has the entire tree literally bend over and have the root ball come out of the ground and usually has minimal damage to the house. The high sand content of the soil adds to this reaction. I have had to remove two oaks after Dennis which leaned over, and when I clear a lot, I always leave oaks and get rid of the damn pines as fast as I can.

Knowing how you love these legal issues, I will share this one with you. Sometime after Ivan and Dennis but before Katrina I had my roof replaced...but during a serious storm my neighbor's tree came crashing through the roof above my bedroom...the roof that I had just replaced from the storms...and which FEMA made worse by driving 4' nails through my built-up roof...and of course the tarps they used were substandard, so I had new issues on top of the old issues...but fast forward...the tree made a hole directly above my bed...and I did not immediately pursue the issue (although got a patch) because my husband was sick and that took priority. So...when I finally got around to dealing with my neighbor over that...he manned up and paid. The legal issue is that the tree in question was dead. If the tree had been alive, it would have been an "act of God"...with no liability on his part.

This is the problem.....the maple which fell was one of our healthy looking trees. After it fell we saw the base had rotted.....not one outward sign.....no notice of the tree being a danger. Had people been visiting and camping under the tree, and they had been hurt......I would have zero liability.