The hazards of living amongst giant pine trees

[ditchparrot]

Ponderosa pine trees are a great source of shade during the hottest part of the year and create some other neat environmental conditions, but there's a trade-off to living in their midst. In violent winds, some of them give way and fall, and due to their size, they'll destroy anything in their path on the way down.

I took the photo below about 250 feet from my house yesterday evening. We had a north wind with gusts that reached 55 mph and this tree couldn't sustain it. Nobody, not even arborists, knows which ones are most likely to come down in such incidents. Fortunately, nobody was injured in this one and it didn't even appear that there was serious property damage. Power was out for a bit, but was quickly restored.

These trees bare little resemblance to loblolly pines or other conifers found in places around the country that resemble overgrown asparagus stalks. Almost all mature Ponderosas are at least 100 feet tall, many half again that, and they're thick. In the photo, you can see that the one on the right just in front of the black car is a monster. I've got one just a few feet in front of my house that's every inch of 6 feet through the middle. On my property, which is a little more than a third of an acre, I have 17 Ponderosas.

During a particularly violent spring storm in 2011, a big across the street and two houses down gave way and took a smaller one with it. The very tip of the big one landed directly on the hood of my truck and did $17,000 worth of damage (all paid by insurance). I was happy that was the extent of it.

The wind is still blowing hard this morning, but is expected to chill out here in a couple hours. I really hope this scene isn't repeated before it does.

Tree down.JPG (762.95 KiB) Viewed 1283 times

[North Country Gal]

Same story, here, just different species of pine. Ours are mostly White Pine with some Red pine, too. These were the giants that brought the railroads, up here, to harvest all the timber. Timber is still the main agricultural product in our county. 40 or 50 mph winds are a big deal, though, if they hit these pines. Most of our power outages are caused by downed trees.

The White Pine is the big tree in our area, as with these at the edge of the water on our lake.

[RanchRoper]

We just had an 80' poplar in our yard trimmed by an arborist last month. Too many branches leaning over the house. We routinely get 50 mph winds here coming down the eastern slope of the Rockies. Blowing hard today as well. We have a few pines but they are pretty stout.

[daytime dave]

In my beloved Adirondacks, a chain saw is a good idea to have in the truck. The road can be closed just like ditchparrot's very easily by a large tree. The power goes out because of the downed trees a lot.

[BrokenolMarine]

I got up yesterday, planning to get back to my box project first thing after morning coffee. Miss T was out at her coops doing her morning routine while I made the coffee. We had violent thunderstorms and high winds the night before, and my morning plans were blown before the coffee finished brewing. The wind had blown a hickory nut thru one of the panes in a roll out ventilation window in one of Tina's coops, with the force of a shotgun slug. Heavy rains are predicted for the rest of the week.

Tina pulled the frame... she won't let me near a ladder... ... and I disassembled the section with the broken glass, drove to the hardware store for plexiglass and got er put back together. Miss T reinstalled the assembly. By the time it was all done... it was time for lunch.