Falling Oaks

One of my biggest concerns with all the hurricanes this year has been fear that my oak trees will fall down.  I have two big ones (45-50 years old?) and the way they are positioned on my property there is really only one direction that they can fall and avoid hitting my house (assuming that they fall in the same wind).  Given that a hurricane has changing wind directions, it is entirely possible that they could fall in different winds and either both miss or both hit. 

 

My other complaint about them is that they dump leaves all over the place.  I don’t want to take them out because they look nice and I like the shade (and it’s really expensive to have them removed), but they could probably stand to be thinned out a little.

 

So I’ve had some tree guys out to give me estimates.  They’ve all told me different things, but the common thing they’ve all said is that they can’t do anything to the tree in the back until the power company comes out and trims it back from the lines.

 

I called the power company, but they were understandably busy (this was right after the second hurricane, Frances) and said that they probably wouldn’t get to me until the end of the year.  At this point, Ivan, the third hurricane (and the only one that I boarded up for), is on his way and I’m beginning to worry.  One of the tree guys had shown me some pictures of his work.  “And, oh, by the way, this is the same type of tree as yours and the same type of house construction as yours.”  He shows me a picture of a tree that has fallen and bisected the house.  Thanks buddy.

 

But it seemed there was nothing I could do, and as it turned out Ivan didn’t come nearby (look for another post on hurricane prediction).  But Jeanne, the fourth hurricane, did come near and did knock down one of the trees in the neighborhood and the tree did fall on one of the houses. 

 

Now my neighborhood is older, built back in the 60’s, and all the houses have concrete block walls and cement tile roofs (the rafters are wood, or course).  But they’re pretty darn sturdy-looking.  It took them a few days to get the tree off of the house before we could see what kind of damage they had, but it seems it wasn’t that bad.  The roof was mildly broken and a window was broken too, but the walls looked fine.  It doesn’t necessarily make me feel better, but it sure could have made me feel worse.

 

Yesterday the power company came out and trimmed the tree in the back.  The men wore hard hats, climbed trees, and used chainsaws.  The boys were ecstatic and wore their own hard hats while they watched.  I’m not particularly impressed with their work, but if I can hire people to work on the tree now I’ll be happy.