When Trees Go Bad

On Thursday of last week a windstorm blew through the region. We had this last year too, culminating in the Hannakuh Storm that took down the infrastructure here for several days. Last week's storm was merely a pale reminder of that span of days when the community came together and power was out for weeks in some cases.

Pale reminder for some, and a reminder of nature's power for others.

The neighbors up the street got a different message when a tree in their front yard blew over onto their minivan. Thankfully no one was hurt and miraculously the house was not touched. Only the van, which is likely to be totaled. To complicate matters the husband was out of town on a missions trip - out of cell phone coverage. But the wife called the insurance company and got things sorted out. On Sunday a bunch of their friends came out to cut the tree up for firewood and clean up what was left. This is a great bunch of guys and they did awesome work. When I ride by on the way to work in the morning, the only reminder of a problem is white plastic sheeting in the back opening of the van.

So what would cause this tree to go over? Well the theories are endless, but one thing is for certain; our neighborhood is built above hard pan clay, and the root system of any tree is very shallow. We had most of our trees taken out in the 1990s, because they were ugly and pulling up the driveway. All it took was some trimming, a cable, and a 4x4 pickup to pull them out of the ground. We don't miss any of them; they were messy and made the yard dark.

While we are saddened for the loss of our neighbors' van, we are happy it was unoccupied at the time and that they were able to get help so quickly!