Ice storm Gemini... Upstate NY

F

frashdog

Branched out member
Location
Champlain valley, adirondack coast
Saturday evening Dec 21st ice storm Gemini hits upstate NY. Upstate like near Canada. They are calling for upto 2" of ice tonight, many places have already seen 1/2". The trees were sagging heavily as it got dark. Today there were hundreds of utility and clearance bucket trucks in and around Plattsburgh. They were sitting idle in parking lots and hotels waiting. I saw what looked over 50 Nelson trucks in one parking lot.

In feb 1998 we had an ice storm that shut the north county down for weeks. State of emergency was declared, national guard and FEMA showed up.

Very exciting! Of course this is gonna hit when we are busier then ever. We just got into a nice shop I can get all my equipment in to work on, we have a sweet yard to dump all winter in, and we got a bandit 1890 this summer. Recently we have been crushing frozen ground jobs. Being able to back all the equipment up the the trees and not worry about turf damage out wieighs all the cons with cold weather work IMO.

Not going to sleep much tonight! Bring it!
 
Unlike wind storms, ice storms create a lot of branch damage, and not much uprooting. Most damaged trees can be repaired and retained. When trunks and most of the scaffolds are intact, the trees can come back well.

Pruning can be harder work than removal, but easy to sell. If the tree has value, you can preserve and restore it for them.

P.S. The "50% Rule" for managing crown loss is pure BS. 80%+ crown loss can be managed.
 

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A good reminder to save all the salvageable trees. But the 80% advice. Do we have a name for that cut? Why not 100%? Call it the basal dormant bud stimulater cut.

edit Sorry I was thinking or not thinking total tree not 80% crown loss. I suppose that is manageable. My trees are all crown and stem basically.

Treebuzz out. Back to bed.
 
Well I guess I'm on the edge of it. Bout a half hour away is with out power and state of emergency. Right now they are saying 95k with out power.

Just gonna sit back and enjoy my warm shower and Xmas lights, maybe go sledding! Let the hero's show is how it's done. My jobs will start after the emergency crews leave.

Like said, ice storms break branches and codom stems. Lots of work to come this spring and summer. Time to work on marketing...
 
Not a bad thing to be out of the emergency area especially just before christmas. I'm in about the same boat as you but on the north edge of the storm in Ontario. About a half hour to 45 mins away from the majority of the damage but it is still freezing rain here so we might get some damage yet.

Its been quite the storm in Ontario, I've seen some videos of people skating on streets!
 
[ QUOTE ]
Unlike wind storms, ice storms create a lot of branch damage, and not much uprooting. Most damaged trees can be repaired and retained. When trunks and most of the scaffolds are intact, the trees can come back well.

Pruning can be harder work than removal, but easy to sell. If the tree has value, you can preserve and restore it for them.

P.S. The "50% Rule" for managing crown loss is pure BS. 80%+ crown loss can be managed.

[/ QUOTE ]
I feel like it also depends on the time of year and species. There is a big ash in Plattsburgh that had a 100% crown reduction after ice storm of '98. The home owner did not want to cut it down and some out of town gypsy storm chaser said it will be fine we do this all the time. I mean all gone down to one crotch with three short 1' plus diameter stems. A stout 30' tall trident if you will. The thing looks great in the summer now to has a full crown. I imagine the resulting branch mass is not attached as deep as the original mass... Non the less it is an example of "in your face I told you so" kind of stuff that happened here after ice storm '98. Many consultant edumicated type folks told us all all trees were gonna die... Not many did.
 
I was on my way down 71S and there were tons of trucks headed north, I was wondering what was up. I would not mind joining up to do some work up there. that would be cool.
 
ah storm chasers, capitalizing on others misfortune.

I hate storm work.

It is an unlucky break for my customers and their trees.

I offer deep discounts to my loyal customers on the work to offset the greed.

Guess I'm not in the game for the money.
 
Storm work is just another element of our work. We work at the same rate but have to prioritize somehow. We do those jobs that are emergencies ASAP and usually those are T&M. If someone is looking for an estimate first then that signals that there is no immediacy to the job and it's given a lower priority.

It's the unfortunate reality of the work we do that sometimes we prosper off of other's misfortune. Is it any different then being in the body shop business or medical field? You surely don't go to the doc when you're feeling good right?
 
Treehumper,

Good points,

We do storm damage, just don't like it.

I am friends with my clients and their trees. Nature can be very harsh. All that careful work we did smashed to bits.
Pisses me off. Not really something to be excited about.

It's like the doc that just did a knee replacement on a guy and just as he is finishing up PT he gets in a motorcycle wreck and has to have that leg amputated. What a waste of money and effort. Sure the body shop gets to work on the bike and the doc gets some more billable hours out of it, but is pissed about doing such a good job the first time around.
 
Storm work is just fun to me. Not the money aspect I care about. I don't make more cleaning up storm mess than pruning lovely trees. Storm work has a critical thinking aspect that I really love.
 
Macswan,

true that.

Some of out best and most technical rigging has been a result of storm work. Some of the funnest jobs we have done in the past year have been jobs with no big iron access. Most powerful tool on the job was our brains and a GRCS. It is slow work, but a real challenge. The harder the job the slower we go. Floating a big chunk of tree away from a building in 3D with 3 raising/lowering points is a fun dance. And yes it is all billable hours.

Probably the other part of storm damage work you like is feeding the rat. Our work is dangerous enough without adding thousands of pounds of ice, darkness, fatigue, other factors that make the rat fat.

I'm just sayin, some company's business plan is based on storm damage. Those companies usually have bean counters.
Once the bean counters get involved, most other ethics get brushed out the back door.
 
and beans are also a part of every solution.

and a musical fruit, to boot. Toot toot!

Yes the adrenalin in the triage is enticing,

But most of all the thrill of restoration, pulling trees out of the jaws of death, to live again.
 
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