6 homes in tiny town were damaged by limbs and whole trees yesterday afternoon.

60 m.p.h - 80 m.p.h winds for 35 minutes was all it took.

Another 8 homes were extremely lucky when falling trees missed them by a foot or two.

Why we didn't lose power is a miricle.

My bird feeder ended up 130 feet away in the cemetery.

The quad cities ( to the north)
got hammered pretty good as well.

I will have to be VERY diligent. I have at least 20 massive oak trees that are within 10 paces of my home. I have no grass at all (literally), as the landscape is house under canopy.

We had a tree guy in last week to take out some dead pines. He generally gave all mine a clean bill of health. He did take one small oak tree down. I thought it looked fine, all green and healthy looking last summer. It was not at all on my radar, but a woodpecker dimed it out to me last winter. So I had the tree guy take it down. You can bet I'll be paying close attention to the woodpecker activities in the neighborhood going forward.

"This one's a goner!""


Trust your local woodpecker.

Shoot, I spend 20% of my life removing dead limbs, cutting down trees that have internal rot and just general debris falling around the farm. Missouri trees are notoriously poor rooted.

Thank God for tractors and chain saws!

Yes, have seen it, dead or dying trees to close to a house or garage. Don’t have any here. Sometimes even that healthy looking tree can get pushed over.

My parents live in north central Illinois, and their area got hit by the same storm yesterday. They had 100+ MPH straight line winds, plus a couple tornadoes as close as 20-30 miles away.

They had several whole trees torn off at ground level, and several sections of their wood privacy fence were blown down. The pressure/suction was so great through the attic vents that the blown insulation in their attic was tossed around, and the wood flap over their attic access hatch in the garage was picked up and moved.

They're still assessing the house for further damage.

Here are some of their trees:

One weather event I personally have never experienced. Reports say it was a Derecho.

We had a nice white oak off the NW corner of the house for years. One particularly bitterly-cold winter it developed a frost crack. We had the tree through-bolted, thinned, and cabled, but it's fate was written.

Within 5-10 years it had begun increasingly leaning toward the house and appeared to be coming up out of the ground.

We had it removed.

We've had a total of four trees that were a danger to the house removed over the years.

My hometown, Marshalltown, Iowa, was hit hard by a tornado in 2018 and was slowly recovering...until yesterday. My dad is in a nursing home, without power, and told me today it might be several more days before it’s restored. He’s been told the community is in worse condition than the tornado as the twister only hit a section of town and yesterday the entire town felt the full force.

I was going to visit him today, but I can’t even get into to his area, so...

I have a 40-ish foot tall dead Poplar that I've been trying for over a month to hire somebody to take down.

I'm pretty confident the last guy I talked to will do it eventually, but he works full time at his day job during the week and only has a helper available on Sundays. I think I'm next on his list, but he's in the middle of a pretty big job around the corner so it may be a few weeks yet.

North liberty ,Ia was w/o electricity for 24 hours.
parts of Iowa City
still out after 24 hours

They started sounding the sirens half an hour ahead of time in Des Moines when the skies were almost completely sunny. I pulled up the radar to figure out what was going on and saw it looked ominous. We lucked out because we are in a valley with no significant trees and the worst of it stayed to the north of Des Moines. It was still intense and we maybe only had 40-50mph winds, I called ahead to the in-laws in the Quad Cities area and let them know to batten down the hatches. They had significant tree damage but no house damage luckily. Pretty crazy weather event.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
We had a nice white oak off the NW corner of the house for years. One particularly bitterly-cold winter it developed a frost crack. We had the tree through-bolted, thinned, and cabled, but it's fate was written.
Within 5-10 years it had begun increasingly leaning toward the house and appeared to be coming up out of the ground.

We had it removed.

We've had a total of four trees that were a danger to the house removed over the years.

Similar thing here. We've had 3 large white oak trees taken down that were too close to the house. Ridiculously close to the house. One of them was obviously starting to lean. When taken down we found it to be hollow close to the ground. It would have fallen on the house if we had not been pro-active.

Last night, a tree took out a power line near our house:



Sorry about the crappy cell phone picture. My wife's friend took it. We were without power for about 8 hours.

Just so people are aware, the way most homeowners insurance works is:

If a neighbors tree falls on your property and does damage, and if it was an otherwise healthy appearing tree, you (or your insurance) are liable for the damage and clean-up.

If a neighbor's tree appears unhealthy, or in otherwise imminent danger of falling and you inform your neighbor (the owner of said tree) and they do nothing about it, and it subsequently falls on and damages your property, then it is the responsibility of the owner of the tree.

I had a tree that was located on a right-of-way of the township in which I live fall. It damaged the fence around my property. I cleaned up the portion of the tree on my property and repaired my fence. However, it was apparent that one of the major branches would eventually rot and also fall on my fence. I wrote the township, twice, requesting that they send out a crew and cut the limb to pre-empt that occurrence. Never got a response.

Four years later, as predicted, it came crashing down on my fence. I called public works and they sent a crew out immediately (tacit admission?) and they cleaned up the branches. They told me that I'd have to file a claim with the township for the damage. So I did. I got an estimate and submitted the claim. The township's insurance company said they weren't responsible because they didn't have enough manpower. I told them not only did they send a crew out immediately, but they also had had four years in which to remedy the situation. I told them if they didn't pay in full, I'd sue the township in small claims court. They stood firm. I sued. As soon as I filed, they settled for the whole amount plus my court costs.

If you see a tree that presents a hazard, you need to tell the owner, or it will be on you when the inevitable happens.

Adios,

Pizza Bob

A neighbor across the street had the two large, lower limbs rip off the tree in his front yard last night. I estimate the tree was about 35' tall. I'm surprised the whole tree didn't blow over.

One limb fell across his car, buying it in branches. This afternoon, a crew arrived with chain saws, freed the car, and then removed the entire tree. The car seemed unharmed.

The same neighbor had an identical tree removed last year. I wondered at the time if they should both be removed. My next-door neighbor also had one of his two trees removed. I wonder if some tree disease has been going around?

It was quite a storm. We had two trees come down. This one almost rearranged our living room.

That's how it works in Arkansas too.

quote:

Originally posted by synthplayer:
Might this be a Jersey thing, and the laws different in other states? Or, is this an insurance thing and applies everywhere?

Laws are different in each state. I met with a tree guy who helped write the Tennessee laws

quote:

Originally posted by synthplayer:
Might this be a Jersey thing, and the laws different in other states? Or, is this an insurance thing and applies everywhere?

Same in FL, you have to report the tree to the property owner, otherwise the damage done is the responsibility of the property owner on which the tree fell. Best done in writing with a signature required.

I saw some pics and info about Iowa corn fields being blown down, the actual corn plants. Just destroyed. Also Corn silos and bins destroyed. Reports are 10's of Thousands of acres of corn crops destroyed. This will affect corn for human consumption but maybe they can, if they have the equipment, harvest all they can and grind it into corn silage for animal feed. Nevertheless it will be a huge loss financially for many farmers.

If you think the cost of tree removal is high when its still standing, wait until there are dozens or even hundreds of trees down in the area and see what it costs.....