Seattle Stormin 2006

Re: Pacific NW storm (2006)

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Mark and Tom, your input, s'il vous plait....


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I had to google that!
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The last one looks like it needs lots of ropes considering that there are just a bunch of smaller trees in the area. I nlove/hate storm work. Best of luck and keep the pics coming.
 
Re: Pacific NW storm (2006)

Thanks for taking the time to post the pics.

If I could ask a favor...if you see examples of trees that were obvious dangers before the storm that failed in the storm I would love to be able to add them to my collection. In most of the pics it looks like the soil failed not the tree. The one that went on the chimney then rolled to the roof had brown rot in the center. It looked like the trunk flare was decayed too. I would have expected to see more fiber tears rather than the blocky ends on the trunk.

Too often people think that they couldn't have done anything to prevent the loss of the tree. After researching tree failures from storm events Gary Johnson from the U of Minnesota concluded that all most all could have been prevented if proper preventive tree care would have been practiced.
 
Re: Pacific NW storm (2006)

I gotta go to work and dont have time to finish so here's all the posts and pics at the Tree House: http://gypoclimber.com/showthread.php?p=83846#post83846

Mark, what I meant was, do y'all mind me embedding pics?...why it wouldn't work this time I don't k-k-know, did ya'll put me on probation, lol....


Tom, as always, hazard, defective trees were some that failed. But we had had a record rainfall in Novemeber, then had a deluge the day of the storm....the worst scenario as we all know....
 
Re: Pacific NW storm (2006)

There are two "problems" with embedding pics:

Those who are not fortunate enough to have better-than-dialup-availability suffer.

The format of the page can get messed up (necessitating side-scrolling) if the pics are unreasonably sized.

Either attachments (and not later embedded!) or links to off-site image serving are the best options.
 
Re: Pacific NW storm (2006)

I'm still planning to get a few pictures posted, but it will likely be a bit before I get around to it.

Tom,

Many of the trees I lost had at least some laminated root rot (Phellinus weirii) in them, but the early stages of this disease are not east to identify with out a lot of work. Which isn't practical in most setting and certainly isn't in mine. I have a few trees that look like they may have it and they stayed up just fine. A couple that didn't appear to have it did and ended up horizontal. I lost one by the house that appeared to be nothing more than soil failure. It had an 8' root ball with lots of dirt and fine roots attached. I also lost a few top. Most of them look to have failed at a place of previous damage (broken top from a large snow storm in the late '60s).

So from all that, as expected defects certainly raises the likely hood of failure, but like Roger said earlier we had a lot of rain and the ground didn't have its normal holding power so we lost health ones as well.

Cary
 
Re: Pacific NW storm (2006)

Beautiful pictures.

Also would like to support Tom's position of failure rates being an issue of proper care beforehand.

At an area Real Estate Advisory Committee meeting, trying to influence the money people ended in frustrating talking to the wall, other than individual appointments to the agent's own properties. One consultant actually promoted listing properties in the mid-Summer when canopies would hide obvious defects.

Cheapening of reality, limit costs to increase profits. I'd like to test the waters on litigation after the storm, when neighboring properties are effected by neglect to known hazards. All I can do here is try to let awareness in, prune as best I can, and suffer/enjoy the consequences (as Mark said, storm work is both enjoyable and not).
 
Re: Pacific NW storm (2006)

Now try this puppy on for size; also in Renton....this appx 42 inch dbh butt rotted cottonwood totaled this dwelling, trapping a lady in her bed. She had to be cut out by the paramedics, and escaped with only a nasty head cut, and, most likely major psychological trauma. There were other occupants as well, the neighbor broke into the house and got them out.

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The other leaning trunk will be removed. I'll set a guy line behind its lean, then rig out the lateral limbs, pull some, then pull over the trunk. My new storm chasing subs, the "Storm Troopers" from Colorado, will bring their self loading log/trash truck, and skidsteer to load all the debris. I hope I bid it high enough. my guess is it won't take that long. There will need to be an asbestos abatement crew there hosing down the house and wood as we work, I hear.
 
Re: Pacific NW storm (2006)

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for taking the time to post the pics.

If I could ask a favor...if you see examples of trees that were obvious dangers before the storm that failed in the storm I would love to be able to add them to my collection. In most of the pics it looks like the soil failed not the tree. The one that went on the chimney then rolled to the roof had brown rot in the center. It looked like the trunk flare was decayed too. I would have expected to see more fiber tears rather than the blocky ends on the trunk.

Too often people think that they couldn't have done anything to prevent the loss of the tree. After researching tree failures from storm events Gary Johnson from the U of Minnesota concluded that all most all could have been prevented if proper preventive tree care would have been practiced.

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Tom, check out my flickr site, which I'm adding to as time allows and I shoot more pics. Feel free to use anything you like, and ask me about the trees if you need to. And, if you want higher res versions, let me know. My fees are negotiable.....lol.

The big fir on the mansion was healthy...no obvious defects or root rot. Just a high water table, lots of wind and rain, and over she went. I'm seeing many failures with no or minimal defects.

The below pics of an amazingly splintered apart douglas fir, however, tell a different story....
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Re: Pacific NW storm (2006)

More pics. A contributing factor to this failure is the new home and landscape on one side. The fir had some ivy on it, but I doubt if it was enough to add much wind load.
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Re: Pacific NW storm (2006)

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Tough jobs the last two days, a large oak resting on a $300k small house, and a fir on an appx 12000 sq foot house on 3 acres in Medina..possibly a $20mm estate. Climber is Matt Mayo of Preservation Tree Care out of Denver. He and Aaron (pictured in next post about the Medina fir) formed "Storm Troopers" They worked Katrina and a couple east coast storm aftermaths.


More pics coming, but first we have to finish the tree, we have two GRCS's on it and are bringing in a third in a few hours.

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noone but Glens is complaining , so here's embedded pics from the above two jobs.

We were able to finish the oak by finding a 18" dbh Jap maple in a neighbor's yard, padding its trunk, setting a block, and squeezing the chip truck into the narrow driveway, holly on one side, picket fence on the other. I had to sneak out a half opened pasenger door, and navigate over the picket fence paying mind to the boys (family jewels) and stretch the 200 foot line enough to tie it to the truck. This gave us the ability to lift it off the house more effectively than the two GRCS's were doing. (One was installed on an 11" dbh dogwood, which was in danger of being uprooted! I hinged it, the cut opened up, stopped and looked over the situation. While Mat and I were affirming that it wouldn't reach a prized silk tree, it moaned and did a swinging fall right onto the woodpile, 90 seconds or so after I'd backed off the cut. It was raining, so no pics of the setup.
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We had speedlined and lowered the upper canopy over the roof and toward the street. For the wood, we moved the speedline to the side, across the yard to a GRCS (red line). Here's Matt, setting three blocks in a fishing pole array. Lowering line runs down to another GRCS on the trunk. When tensioning one time, it slipped up the trunk, catching Ryan's arm and hurting him to the extent that three fingers are still sore a week later, and damaging the cogs of the crank handle. I had to file them to make it fit. We should have rechecked the strap tension...smoothish pin oak bark...and pounded in a couple lag screws to hold the GRCS..but had none with us.
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Re: Pacific NW storm (2006)

A few from the Medina job, a 30 inch dbh fir resting on a steep roofed very high dollar house. Again, zero crane access. So we installed a boatload of rigging--we used a small birch and a larger horse chestnut as gin pole trees, at less than optimal angles. We guyed back the birch, which was only about 8 inches in diameter where we had the block set, to a tulip tree, and to a cedar 200 feet away (with my new 1/2 inch spectra full static line, 24k tensile) Installed the GRCS on the chesnut, ran it through a block, put a 9/16th double braid full static line on it, and a 3/4 Stable Braid in the birch, run through a Hobbs. (The Storm Troopers guys had forgotten to get their other GRCS from another truck, and mine was still being used by Four Seasons Tree Care who own half of it.)We installed a double block in the birch, with a lowering line and the lifting line in it, and another in the chestnut, set with a retreivable false crotch. These last two lines were to be tied to the fir closer to the roof than the main support lines were set. But we didn't need them as we were able to get the entire tree off the roof by cutting it off the stump. But we had nowhere near enough lift with one GRCS. The insurance work contractors had built an elaborate trapezoidal shaped support structure that could be slid down the trunk as we gained lift, which they were assisting greatly with as they'd installed a 6x8 post on a stable platform and were lifting the tree up with a 20 ton jack as we winched. We had to let off on the jack several times and add more 6x8 under it as its lift was only 8 inches, and the tree was bent, so it took a lot of lift to get it free. Turn out the sliding support structure probably did little good. Anyhow, after we got it clear, we remvoed the jack support, and cut the tree off the stump. Due to the imperfect line angles of the two support lines, as the tree dropped down, it slid back a few feet which lost some of the lift and it slapped down onto the house, but did no further damage. We then continued to cut weight off the bottom, till it was vertical, then lowered the last 25 feet, which probably still weighed 3500 lb or more.

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Matt and Aaron
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Re: Pacific NW storm (2006)

Jacking it off, oops, up and off the house.....
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Mayo pounding wood.....not even in the morning.....
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Too bad I missed the focus and forget to use the high speed motor drive here. You can see the blur as the top is shaking as it whacked the house. The butt has just slid off and the stump flopped right back in the hole.
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