When Trees Turn Dangerous

What Can Happen?

While healthy trees are an excellent source of oxygen and shade, when malnourished they turn into threats. Broken branches and falling trees can destroy homes, vehicles, and lives.

Damaged trees or branches can also fall on power lines, causing tremendous danger. Electricity can travel through the tree to whatever is touching it. This situation presents a serious risk of electrocution or fire, so get help immediately.

Poor Maintenance

Trees, like all living things, require nutrients and water to survive. With a deficiency or excess of either or both, the sturdiness of the tree falters, and it becomes hazardous to all that is around it. A deficiency can cause the branches to break and the roots to become short and shallow. Too much can cause excess weight on the limbs and can cause the surrounding soil to become loose and provide little support in a wind storm.

Severe Weather

Extreme weather, either in the summer or winter, can cause a breakdown of sustenance throughout the tree. Ice and hail can add weight to limbs and damage to the trunk. Only when the ice begins to melt is there any moisture for the roots to absorb.

High temperatures can deplete the moisture both in the air and in the ground, causing the tree to dehydrate. Roots need water to grow deep and wide. When they are denied this necessity, the roots become shallow and short, providing very little grasp to the ground around the tree.

Hard, heavy, long rains can cause weaknesses in the root system as well. Either by reducing the amount of oxygen available to the roots or causing the soil around the tree to become loose, once again the tree has very little hold to the earth around it.

Heavy winds add stress to trees, so feeble ones are more vulnerable to destruction. With weak branches and no ground support, breaking and toppling are inevitable.

Disease

With a weakened system, trees become more susceptible to disease and insect problems. When a tree is diseased or riddled with insects, the strength integrity becomes compromised. Falling branches and feeble trunks become devastating and the ground and other plants around the tree can become contaminated as well.

A professional tree care specialist should be consulted regularly to examine trees and their support systems. With proper care and attention, tree dangers can be reduced, and property and lives can be saved.

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