One dead, Biltmore Estate, Asheville

[moss]

I don’t know rich people can be weird. I have one custy that has a dead sugar maple that we topped down to a 40’ stub five years ago now it is severely rotten and threatens one of their garages and driveway but want it left for the birds. They have metric tons of money and don’t care.

When it comes down to it, you and I aren't going to convince any property owner to do "the right thing" if they are firmly convinced for whatever reason that they are right. This is true when I'm trying to talk a customer out of removing a tree when my assessment is that it is low risk to their property or bodies. And less commonly, when they want to keep something hazardous.

General rule I've observed is that people with low financial resources leave a lot of hazardous stuff standing because they have no choice (obvious). A person with abundant cash will do what they want, take trees down without any solid reason except they want to, or some "view clearance" etc. etc. Leaving a habitat snag is another choice a customer with cash might make, even they're being dumb about it. Humans are consistently driven (by their own ideas) to make choices based on something other than solid rationality.
-AJ

 

[Tuebor]

That article says the 911 call came in at 3:44 PM (1944 UTC). Radar image from the same time shows a line of relatively mild thunderstorms still several miles to the northwest of the estate (just north of the cross marked AVL). Must have been a gust front ahead of the closest storm cells, which never grew into anything significant.

 

[DSMc]

...
Break at defect (however subtle) is going to be the more common failure scenario, no?
-AJ

You would think so, but if years of tree evaluation has taught us anything, it is that 'always' and 'never' statements do not accurately describe tree dynamics.

 

[Basswood]

Curious if anyone has heard anymore relevant information. I’m not close with the family but have spent many surf sessions with some of them.

 

[colb]

That article says the 911 call came in at 3:44 PM (1944 UTC). Radar image from the same time shows a line of relatively mild thunderstorms still several miles to the northwest of the estate (just north of the cross marked AVL). Must have been a gust front ahead of the closest storm cells, which never grew into anything significant.
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Is that a Piedmont plateau thing where the wind runs down the mountains and culminates its speed at the flats?

 

[Stumpsprouts]

Curious if anyone has heard anymore relevant information. I’m not close with the family but have spent many surf sessions with some of them.

Haven’t gotten more information due to risk of pending litigation and all. Have heard some rumors but nothing I have been able to verify.

 

[Stumpsprouts]

Lots of new info in an article that came out today. It was a large trim off a beech, which had some visible rot. The tree had been steel cabled. Family is suing and claiming gross negligence and failure to employ ‘competent arborists’. There’s a photo of the tree here. We will see what happens next.

https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2022/07/20/biltmore-estate-lawsuit-gross-negligence-death-fdny-firefighter-falling-tree/10101721002/

Looking at one of the photos, it seems as though there was a steel cable in the limb, and it’s on the ground, conclusion being it may have broke from its attachment in the main stem? (I’d include the photo but the website wants my money. I’m reading this on paper)

The victims wife - “People can’t just think that a tree’s life and the looks of a road comes over a man. But that is just elitist thinking in the rawest form, and it’s gross, and it’s gluttonous that a tree came before my husband’s life.”

 

[Tom Dunlap]

No access…it’s pay walled

 

[colb]

Off the cuff, it seems like it would be hard to show a target occupancy rate that was compatible with anything but a low risk in that circumstance. I sense a bill for lawyer's fees in their future...

 

[Stumpsprouts]

No access…it’s pay walled

Here’s a couple snaps of the print version I got today. I’m feeling very cheap (maybe it’s the Scottish bent I’m on) and not willing to pay money to read the article online.

 

[ATH]

That cable's been there a while. Wonder if it's been inspected and documented?

 

[Treezybreez]

Looks like a bad codominant trunk and not merely a branch. I bet their tolerance for tree defects will tighten up a bit.

 

[Basswood]

Off the cuff, it seems like it would be hard to show a target occupancy rate that was compatible with anything but a low risk in that circumstance. I sense a bill for lawyer's fees in their future...

Without a risk assessment on the tree pre failure do you think that will hold weight in court?

 

[cerviarborist]

Arborists and tree owners have a duty of care to keep trees in their care acceptably safe. On the other hand, when I open my eyes in the morning and start pulling the covers off....I begin a day-long episode of assuming certain risks to life and limb as I go about my business. If I don't wish to assume those risks, I can hit the snooze button and stay in bed. Wubbie don't care.

 

[climbhightree]

2 videos/interviews in this article. One at the top and one about half way down.

'A preventable accident': Woman sues Biltmore estate after tree falls, kills her husband

A lawsuit has been filed against the Biltmore Estate after a fallen tree crashed onto a family's car last month, leaving a father of two dead.

local21news.com

 

[Stumpsprouts]

Wubbie don't care.

Wubbie?

Looks like a bad codominant trunk and not merely a branch. I bet their tolerance for tree defects will tighten up a bit.

The head arborist there is known as being pretty conservative about risks. My guess is the tree was on the chopping block but they were understaffed and underfunded.

2 videos/interviews in this article. One at the top and one about half way down.

'A preventable accident': Woman sues Biltmore estate after tree falls, kills her husband

A lawsuit has been filed against the Biltmore Estate after a fallen tree crashed onto a family's car last month, leaving a father of two dead.

local21news.com

The video she took shows the limb falling. It’s pretty massive, fairly horizontal and one would probably characterize it as overextended. Drops quite suddenly. Really such a tragedy.

 

[Basswood]

I think they’ll win the settlement. There have been cases similar where work was being done in one area, a failure occurred in another, and the company was sued for negligence.

 

[cerviarborist]

Seems the plaintiff's attorney wants to try this in the court of public opinion, if they're behind her making public statements to the media like this. The vast majority of tort cases like this are settled rather than tried. It's going to come down to a battle of experts.

 

[colb]

Without a risk assessment on the tree pre failure do you think that will hold weight in court?

I'm not sure that anything can change the target occupancy rate, whatever that is... The video shows two cars in ~.5 seconds, so maybe there are lots of cars? It has to be a veritable parking lot to get high occupancy though. Again, off the cuff, two cars in .5 seconds is a 10% occupancy rate? If there are fewer than that, the occupancy rate quickly attains an asymptote of 0%... I'm not sure that a risk assessment would be in order with a low occupancy rate - waste of resources.

 

[Basswood]

I'm not sure that anything can change the target occupancy rate, whatever that is... The video shows two cars in ~.5 seconds, so maybe there are lots of cars? It has to be a veritable parking lot to get high occupancy though. Again, off the cuff, two cars in .5 seconds is a 10% occupancy rate? If there are fewer than that, the occupancy rate quickly attains an asymptote of 0%... I'm not sure that a risk assessment would be in order with a low occupancy rate - waste of resources.

I don’t mean changing the occupancy rate. I was thinking more along the lines of using TRAQ language to show a low occupancy rate and low risk rating post failure without an actual report as defense for the estate.