Recent events in the greater Seattle area have highlighted just what tragedies can occur when hazardous, weak trees experience a severe weather event.
During the heavy winds and rains that swept across Seattle, Bothell, Kirkland, and other parts of the Puget Sound in early November, local news station Kiro 7 reported that a number of downed trees had impacted power lines, blocked roads, and in some cases crashed into houses and power lines.
In North Seattle, one large tree that fell across power lines caused an electrical surge that started a fire in a nearby house. And in Kirkland, one of the old growth trees near Big Hill Park succumbed to high winds and toppled.
In October, just a few weeks before this storm, a mother and son from Bellevue were killed when a tree fell on their car during a rainy, gusty afternoon in Preston, WA. The tree had a weak spot in the trunk that caused it to snap off well above the roots and crash down into the road.
In a similar event on November 20, a tree in Bothell fell on a car and briefly trapped its two occupants, who thankfully only had minor injuries. The fallen tree also blocked the road and caused a local power outage.
While you can’t make sure that every tree in your area is non-hazardous, you can—and should—do your best to maintain the soundness and safety of the trees on your property, especially if they are close to a road, power lines, or house. In many cases, an arborist can help you identify and address potential hazards with your trees.
How to Spot a Dangerous Tree
More than one trunk
When a tree has more than one trunk, they tend to have a weak attachment to the roots and may fall easier than trees with one strong, central leader. This is especially true with older trees or those that are already stressed in some other way.
Multiple trunks can also result in weaker wood, so you may seen cracks that go laterally up the trunk and also back into the wood beneath the bark.
Pruning can reduce the weight load of the branches on the meeting point of the two trunks, and cabling the trunks together can help increase the safety and stability of the tree in high winds.
Dead branches
Take a look at your tree and see how many dead branches it has compared to how many live ones. A tree that has more than a handful of dead or dying branches is probably suffering from stress, disease, or pest pressure.
These dead branches, like the splint trunks, have a weak attachment to the body of the tree and are bound to fall at some point, most likely during rain or wind.
It’s best to remove dead branches before they fall, and then inspect the tree to determine the root cause of the die-back.
Trees that lean
It’s normal for trees to not grow perfectly straight. But when they have a dramatic lean and poor weight distribution, they are much more likely to topple.
If you have a leaning tree, check the soil on the opposite side of the lean. If it is cracked or heaving upward, that means that the anchor roots are also beginning to come loose and lose their grip. Since it’s their job to hold the tree steady against wind and rain, this is obviously a problem!
Pruning to reduce weight, and staking and cabling to counterbalance the lean, can help ext4end the lifespan on these trees. Ultimately, however, you will want to have their risk assessed and, if necessary, remove the tree.
Disease or pest damage
In many cases, a tree that is damaged from disease or pests may not show any evidence of that damage until a weather event like heavy rain or strong winds bring it down.
Some trees, such as alders, elms, birches, poplars, and willows, are particularly susceptible to invasions by borer beetles, which drill into the wood of the tree, causing stress and introducing bacteria and fungus that creates an infection. In some cases the borers affect the living tissues of the tree to such an extent that it begins to die, piece by piece.
Borer holes are often surrounded by a sawdust-like frass, or excrement, that often makes people confuse them for woodpecker damage.
If you’re concerned that your trees may have disease or pest infestations, consult a tree professional to identify the disease or pest in question before you apply any kind of treatment.
Construction damage
Have you had recent construction at or near your home? It may have affected the structural integrity of your tree.
Construction often interferes with a tree’s root system, especially in urban areas like Bothell, Kirkland, Woodinville, and other densely populated areas of the Seattle metropolis.
Affected trees will show stress through discolored or undersized leaves, stunted growth, cracked bark, and possibly even soft, decayed wood or bark at the base of the tree.
For first aid, water your tree deeply. Then consult with a arborist to see if pruning, cabling, staking, or deep root fertilization will help your construction damaged tree recover.
A bad pruning job
Although pruning is a major tool in a tree doctor’s arsenal, when it is performed by someone who doesn’t quite know what they’re doing, it can have major consequences for the target tree.
Cuts that were made at the wrong part of the branch will create a hormone imbalance in the tissues that creates uncontrolled growth. This new growth will be fast-growing, dense, and brittle, very susceptible to wind damage.
In other cases, a branch that is removed too far away from the trunk will leave a stump that will never callus over; instead, it will leave an open wound that is a vector for bacteria and fungus—especially in our wet fall and winter weather.
The good news is that in many causes, a certified arborist will be able to correct and mitigate some or all of these bad cuts.
Do you want more help and expert advice from ISA-certified local arborists? Then give Elite Tree Care a call at (425) 350-6909 to schedule your free consultation! We work in the entire Puget Sound area, including Kirkland, Woodinville, Bothell, Lynnwood, Everett, and Seattle.
With over thirty years of tree trimming and tree care experience, Elite Tree Care offers tree risk assessment, pruning, cabling, and bracing, and tree removal—including 24-hour emergency tree removal.