Mother Nature Strikes

[Dawg LB Steve]

Have (had) a tree in the backyard that I could hear creaking away in the wind, started looking into having it removed, but storms blew in off the lake last evening, bringing it halfway down over top of the power lines and the top of the tree in the neighbor behinds yard, just nicked the gutter on the garage but no other damage. Since 5:30 this morning the tree service the power co. Contracts with started arriving, it is almost 10:00 am and 5 crews now and not even a twig has been removed from the tree! Supposed to be my first day back to work after vacation week, ( not complaint too much bout that though) but sitting here watching 10 guy sitting in there trucks!

[Beer-lord]

They're probably eating donuts.
I remember after our last hurricane knocked down blocks of trees and we couldn't get anyone to take care of the ones in front of a few of our houses since all the workers were working on trees on a school (which was still closed for summer).
So, we let them see a few of us taking pictures of them doing nothing and finally someone came over to us and asked us what we were doing and we told them we were going to send the pics to the local news to show how there were blocks of homes with no power due to fallen trees but yet they were working (well, not really) on a school that was closed for summer.
Our trees were taken care of later that day.

So, moral.....get your camera out and let them see you take their picture. Maybe it won't work but it'll keep you occupied.

[FrozenInTime]

Probably can't, or won't touch it until the power company turns off the juice to the lines. Only my guess.

[Dawg LB Steve]

It is now over 7 hrs without anything done at all! One guy told me they are always working around live wires, and they supposedly called power co around 6 am! Wish I could collect a paycheck and O.T. for doing nothing!

[RickBeer]

I hear you. We had an outage a few months back, trees down. The power crews sat for hours (subcontracted, not the power company) napping in their trucks waiting for the subcontracted tree clearing service.

[Chuck N]

What you may have there is no more than the crew than runs the saws. The guy that starts the chain saws is possibly sick or has the day off. And until he gets there there will be no work done because none of them are Chain Saw Starters.

[mtsoxfan]

Well, just to jump in on this... the tree service the town contracts with to clear trees before a storm can bring them down (proactive) took at least 6 guys and over 8 hours to remove a tree in front of my house. A service I contracted did 3 in about 4 hours, cleared and removed....

[Dawg LB Steve]

Well 8-1/2 hrs after they arrive and 8 after they supposedly called the power co. I called the power co. because now the tree is against the wire and smoking. Lo and behold 20 minutes after I call the power crew shows up to cut power! 11 hours later they get the line cleared and I must clean up all the branches, logs, and debris! They only take it if they are trimming for First Energy and not clearing from storms!

[FedoraDave]

Man, what a story! Sorry you had such an awful ordeal, especially when it should have taken them just a couple hours to take care of it.

Our property backs up to some town land that isn't developed. A while ago, I was looking at one of the trees back there and thought, If that tree, which is leaning over my property, came down, it could very well hit my house.

So I called the town Parks Dept., explained the situation, and they took it down in a day or two.

Then, when we had a freak snowstorm on Halloween a couple years back, one of the trees back there actually did come down into our yard. It didn't do any damage, fortunately, but the town was responsible for cleaning it up. My wife called the Parks Dept. and even told them, "I know you're really busy, and this isn't an emergency, but we've got this tree of yours that fell into our yard, so whenever you can get around to removing it, we'd appreciate it."

It was gone the next day!

I can't complain.

[Dawg LB Steve]

I guess around here in Ohio if the tree falls onto your property wether or not its yours, it's your problem! Most of the tree and the most full part of the tree was in the neighbors yard , who is a 90 yr old widow, I absolutely made sure they got all the cuttings over the fence into my yard, knowing they were leaving it behind! Also found out the city service dept would pick it up as long as I got it to the curb.