Storm Damaged Trees: May's Newsletter

When the storm hit us here in Niagara County, NY this month with eighty plus MPH winds that up-rooted trees, tree tops, or large branches onto houses, cars, garages, and even pools the property damages were high. The trees that destroyed or damaged houses, vehicles, and garages were covered by homeowners insurance. The coverage is great but what about all the paper work, calling to get estimates from both contactors and tree companies, deductibles, calling and re-calling your insurance, waiting for the estimates, setting-up appointments between work and everyday life can be very hard and headache. Then wondering if you called the right people to do the work especially in such short notice, what if the work isn’t completed right. The rest of this article will focus proper storm damage tree repair and proactive point-of-view.

After the storm has hit and done its damage the next step is to get the mess the cleaned up to get back to ever day life. There is a very import issue being over looked by many tree services due the lack or care, knowledge, training or greed and this issue is proper storm damage repairs. Repairing the tree after a branch is ripped or broken off is more important than the clean-up itself. The damage created by the branch being ripped or broken off to the tree creates a large wound that will heal improperly or not heal at all. Tree aren’t like human that can regenerate cells to replace other cells, trees most form boundaries that allow for wood decay to occur but to be contained to a small area. When a branch is ripped or broken off a tree unnaturally the mechanisms created to maintain the amount to wood decay is destroyed so in turn there is nothing stopping the tree from decaying. This becomes a problem not now in present day but in the future when the next storm passes through. The wound created doesn’t heal properly then that area becomes a weak spot to allow the next storm to take advantage of and do more damage or even worse damage. This is called a proactive point-of-view.            

Proactive point-of-view (POV) is taking action to a problem before it occurs. Proactive POV helps you the homeowner evaluate the risk of a tree or branch over or near your house. The evaluation of these kind decreases need of the complicated process explain above with using your homeowners insurance or an increase in policy. The most important part of the process is hiring the right professional consultant that will give you a detailed report to explain the issues and rank them in highest to lowest priority. The process will allow you take action before the tree or branch falls on or through your house. Another accept is a peace of mind knowing the risk and knowing that you have dealt with the risk and the next storm that passes through you knowing that you have decreased your risk and increases the trees health and life. This doesn’t mean tree removal or even branch removal each time to decrease your risk there are options like bracing and cabling and pruning that are just affective.