Here was an emergency callout we had this week that simply amazed me! The owner had cut a tree root clean through for reasons unknown.
The tree, a small spruce, was in a raised garden bed so the soil was not very stable anyway to support a tree this size. Due to the garden wall the root system was unable to grow evenly also. We had been having 60+ kph winds (40 mph) and when we got there the tree was simply rocking back and forth about 2 meters (6 feet) at the very top. Damn lucky it had not snapped and fell on their house. Also the power cable running from the street was directly under this tree and the tree was touching the power cable as it was rocking. It it had snapped or we had miscalculated something we would have had a live 240v high amperage cable laying on the ground where we were working. A big thanks to the owner for their intelligence in cutting this root!
Here you can see the garden wall cracking from the movement of the tree. The lean can be easily seen too. The power cable that runs to the house can be seen to right alongside the trunk. The entire root ball was lifting as the tree was rocking!
Our machine only just reached! Because the driveway was so narrow we could not get closer to the tree because the stabilisers for the cherry picker would not fit.
The top was all done with a polesaw and just very small pieces were cut until we got the height down. Then we removed the upper branches to minimise the sail area the wind was hitting. Then it was blocked down in small sections with the wood and lower branches thrown back towards the camera away from the power cable. All is well that ends well, but damn! Are some people stupid. It would have reached their house with no trouble, and taken out their power also!
I really wonder if they wanted the tree gone and rather than go through council to get approval and have to wait, they cut the root said it was an accident and then cry EMERGENCY so we have to come and cut it down straight away!
Crazy logic if you ask me! Surely no one could be that dumb?