Broken Trees - NY edition

[jon-nyc]

So we had a storm Friday night. Apparently a large branch on my neighbor's oak cracked that night. He heard it, but nothing fell so he didn't think much of it.

Then last night right as I was sitting down for dinner we heard a tremendous crash. The large branch fell down into our yard, taking a branch or two of my beautiful European birch with it.

This is taken from the back of my property, my house in the background and my shed is off to the left:

This view captures the tree from which it fell. Look at the upper left corner.

In the above picture, notice the corner of the patio slate you can see. That's where my grill was. I had been grilling there literally 2-3 minutes prior to it falling. When I heard the noise the burger on my plate still hadn't been bitten into. 3 minutes earlier it really would have sucked for me.

I had to disentangle the grill from that tree to move it. It was hot and I didn't want it to start burning the branch.

Here's a closeup of the scar on the oak:

One last picture, the patio view. The cushions are still in the shed, but you could see we'd have had a bad day if we'd been eating outside.

[taiwan_girl]

Wow!!!! Scary and lucky altogether!!!

Glad that it appears that the damage is not very much and everybody is safe.

That is a big branch!!

[Catseye3]

@jon-nyc said in Broken Trees - NY edition:

I had been grilling there literally 2-3 minutes prior to it falling.

[Aqua Letifer]

Damn.

[Horace]

Close call. Glad it wasn't more serious.

[Mik]

Yikes!

[Copper]

Wow.

The picture looks like the remaining branch is going to become unbalanced. The whole thing might have to come down. That oak is going to cost thousands.

Lucky it didn't hit anyone.

[Horace]

I wonder if that limb could have been bound up after the initial injury, and the tree would have healed eventually.

[George K]

Wow. Glad the only injury was the grill.

[Larry]

While all species of trees do it, oaks are particularly prone to what is called "summer branch drop". While the wind and added weight of rain water certainly sped things up, that limb was going to break off anyway. You can see where it had already begun splitting off maybe a year or three ago, where the wood is rotting at the top of the tear.

The issue now is that I see 2 more poi d's where that limb could break again and drop another big branch. One of you should call a tree surgeon and see if that main branch needs to be cut back before something else breaks off.

[Friday]

Yes, it's a good thing you weren't outside. There would have been no time to react.

[Rainman]

Glad you're OK! That's right up there to getting hit by lightning.

[xenon]

Holy crap

[brenda]

Holy cow, jon! You're like the cat with nine lives. Save a couple, will you please?

Glad nobody was hurt.

[Jolly]

Look at the bright side...That's a couple of nice fires in the fireplace or you have some smoking wood.

The new battery chainsaws are much better and will cut bigger stuff than they used to. Might be time for a new tool, if you don't have one.

Something else you might consider for trimming limbs:

https://www.harborfreight.com/95-in-7-amp-corded-electric-pole-saw-62896.html

Yeah, they take a cord, but they're cheap and they work well for limbs they can reach, should you decide to trim some smaller stuff.

For limbs a bit higher, this is slow as molasses, but does work:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/High-Limb-48-in-Manual-Chain-Saw-HD14049CS-48/301790942