Check Your Landscape for Winter Damage

Following a season of storms, damaged trees often retain broken limbs in their crowns. As spring approaches, take a moment to look at the trees in your landscape. We each have a duty of care to maintain our properties in a manner that is safe for persons passing by on public streets and other adjacent shared spaces. Attention to safety and reasonable efforts on our part help protect ourselves and others in our community.

Broken tree parts may be lodged in the tree crown or leaning on other trees, even to have survived strong winds. However, they may give way during a time of calm conditions. Most trees have defects that still allow them to function in the landscape under normal weather conditions. Even day-to-day weather events bring stresses of wind, temperature, and moisture trees have grown to respond well to enough to survive and bend, yet not break.

Injuries and pest attacks, though, often introduce decay into the tree structure that continually degrades strength and function. Trees only add enough response growth to withstand the forces they have undergone in the past. An unusually severe storm may cause dead or defective structures to break. Most breakage from storms occurs in previously damaged or decayed tree parts.

The likelihood of something failing and causing harm to someone or something, or disrupting service defines risk. While a tree exists, some risk remains, as can be said of all assets and actions. If no harm will come from a tree breakage, or the occurrence is unlikely to happen, the level of tree risk is low. The benefits a tree's presence delivers must outweigh the risks for the tree to remain an asset. Monitoring a tree's condition allows us to enjoy the benefits it brings as long as it meets our needs.

Before and after failure: An old tree in declining health stood next to a house and adjacent to a public sidewalk (left), but eventually failed a few months later, falling against the house and damaging it (right). More proactive monitoring and action to remove the tree before it failed could have saved this homeowner from the damage to the house. Photos: Scott Sjolander, Penn State Extension

Actions we take to reduce risk are known as mitigation. We might prune a tree or reinforce its structure to reduce the likelihood of failure. We might move things from under the tree to avoid damage if a break or other failure occurs in the tree. We especially want to move benches, picnic tables, or other things that might attract people to spend time under a tree with higher potential to have a failure so as to keep people away from risk of injury or death from a failing tree. We might take a combination of measures, such as removing a broken limb and teaching our children not to climb trees without first assessing the condition of them. All these steps are meant to reduce the level of risk to a level we can bear.

Public trees bring enjoyment to many people. Each public tree, while benefitting many, stands near or on the shared property of one or a few individuals who feel the greatest burden of its care. These neighbors may be most likely to see a broken part that needs resolved. We enjoy the benefits of trees functioning well in the public landscape. We can all keep watch to maintain public safety. If you see a broken tree or part that is likely to harm someone or damage something, or cause a service disruption, your action is important. Please take time to call your municipal administrator if it is a public tree or consult a Certified Arborist about trees on your own property. This avoids bringing harm to you, and perhaps to many others.