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26 Arbor Age / June 2014 www.arborage.com O n a Friday night in late June last year, I sat by my front window watching a tremendous thunderstorm with my children. Trash cans were blowing up the street, the lights were fl ickering, and then we heard the unmis- takable "CRRRACK" of a neighbor's tree snapping and crashing down. Shortly after, our power went out and remained off for fi ve days. My kids' fi rst thought was, "Is our house going to be okay?" My fi rst thought was, "Whoa, we are going to be busy!" And busy we were. Our offi ce received more than 3,000 phone calls that weekend from longtime customers, as well as people who had never thought to call a tree service before in their lives. Some of our crew members worked more than 60 hours that fi rst week just getting the most dangerous stuff off of people's roofs. We booked work from the June storm well into February of the following year. Every person working in the tree business has a storm story — "The Blow-Down in '87," "The Fourth of July Tornado," "The November Ice Storm," etc. Each of these events has its own character, creating unique ex- periences and challenges for the men and women on the front lines of the cleanup effort. One thing is certain with each one though, they create a ton of work for tree care profession- als. We see so much destruction after storms that's it's easy to say "Storms are bad for trees. Period." What homeowners, and even we as profes- sionals, often don't often stop and ask is, "Why did that tree suffer storm damage and that one did not?" Storms cause damage to trees. Major weather incidents such as Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Sandy, or the 2013 Ice Storm that ran from Texas to Toronto certainly stick out as catastrophic events. The damage caused to homes, infra- structure and power lines from trees in the 2011 Halloween Nor'easter alone was estimated to cost between $1 billion and $3 billion, leaving some residents without power for up to two weeks. Historic weather events such as these are memorable, and very few trees, no matter how great of condition they are in, can withstand the force of hurricane winds. Despite these major events, trees failing in strong thunderstorms are much more common — and the vast majority of these had some predisposing factor that led to the failure. A good rule to pass along to tree owners is, "Storms do not cause tree problems, they reveal them." While not every case of tree failure is 100 percent predictable, there are many ways to determine if failure is a possibility. Let's take a look at some of the most common types of storm-related tree failures and which warning signs we can be on the lookout for. Whole tree failure Whole tree failure, or complete tree failure, is when the tree — trunk, limbs, leaves and all — comes down. Most of these cases are the result of some issue with the root system. Co- nifers, such as spruce and fi r, are fre- quent victims of this, as their dense foliage becomes a sail in high winds. Couple this with any number of site issues such as confi ned root areas, poor soil, or waterlogged soil, and the failure risk goes up. Trees that have had any type of site alterations in the past 10 years, such as grade changes, new construction, or trees that used to be a group that are now solo trees can be more vulnerable to strong weather elements such as wind. PLANT HEALTH CARE PLANT HEALTH CARE All photos provided by Rainbow Treecare Scientifi c Advancements B y B r a n d o n G a l l a g h e r W a t s o n STORM DAMAGE AND TREES