Two Hundred Years, Gone in a Heartbeat

The biggest tree on our property, a red oak that stood at the far back corner, fell on Sunday, in one of the worst storms I can remember. The rain wasn't so bad but the winds that preceded the storm were horrendous. I watched from a bedroom window as the mighty tree fell, pushed by the winds, faster than the speed of gravity. It came down in mere SECONDS.

Our area was hit hard by the storm, and we are still digging out. Some roads are still closed (including ours). In a few places, the power may still be out. The news stations picked up the story; some of you knew about our disaster before I told you.

We have been through a number of these episodes during our time in this house. The very first one was the worst, an ice storm that brought drama and trauma in January 2005, as MANY trees fell ON the house less than a year after I bought it, and power and phone were out for DAYS. That one, I weathered alone. It was one of the worst experiences of my life.

In thinking about it, I have realized, as Mary Oliver once wrote, that a box full of darkness can also be a gift. I did not wish for any of that to happen, but I made it through it, and I figured it out. I learned some things. I have a new understanding of what disaster can mean; what sorts of things you may need to address as a homeowner; what resilience is made of.

So as soon as our tree finished falling on Sunday afternoon, I did three things: I went out and took numerous detailed photos, I phoned the guy who did our last tree removal, and I emailed a photo and some additional information about what had happened to our insurance company.

Fortunately, the tree guy was already in Stormstown, so he swung by and took a look at the tree. By later that evening, he had sent me an estimate. He told me they could be here as soon as Monday, if we got the go-ahead.

The insurance lady I emailed on Sunday was out of the office Monday, so as it turned out, I needed to call the insurance agency anyway. I spoke with someone on the phone who was not my usual gal. 

He was pleasant enough, but I heard his sharp intake of breath when he looked at our account. He informed me in a somewhat disapproving tone that since we'd had "numerous wind damage claims," we would very likely experience a rate increase. Well, thanks for that. As though I am personally responsible for the climate changes that have made our storms worse such that they keep TAKING OUR TREES DOWN.

He also told me that we would need to wait until an adjuster called me back to proceed with any actions to remedy the situation. So we sat around Monday, hurrying up and waiting. My tree guy called: What was up? I told him that as soon as I heard back from the insurance adjuster, he'd be the first person to know.

Around 7 that night, after a long day of waiting (and I mean waiting by the phone at home, as we only have a land line phone, no cell phones), the insurance adjuster called me back. She was very pleasant, and she informed us that there were so many calls that day that our local adjusters were being assisted by more distant offices; she was located in Harrisburg, and no, she was NOT driving the two hours up to our house to look at the situation herself.

I answered a bunch of questions, described the tree and the shed, and promised to email her photos of the tree and the shed it fell on, as well as the tree removal estimate. She would send me a form to list any items ruined in the event. We didn't discuss exact amounts, but she said it was likely she'd get a check in the mail the next day. (I haven't seen it yet.)

As soon as I got off the phone with her, I emailed our tree guy. We had plans to visit family on Tuesday by lunchtime, and I had plans set up for Wednesday. Rain is expected Thursday. Could he come Friday? Well, he had some of his equipment already in Stormstown, so he'd like to come by Tuesday morning to at least start the chipping part. He'd like to be there by 8 a.m., thought it might take three hours if all went well.

In the end, he showed up around 9, they were here a while, and then they disappeared for what felt like a long time to go do some other project in the middle of the day; they returned to finish up our project in early afternoon. Our family visiting plans, which we'd pushed back, now got cancelled.

They cut the big tree into large sections, and they could have hauled it away and disposed of the wood, but it would have been totally wasted. Friends expressed interest in having the wood for firewood, and so that was the plan we made for next steps. 

The tree was off the shed by this point, and the backyard was looking much clearer of debris. My trusty green Ames Easy Roller yard cart, which I'd used to remove wood from prior tree falls, was squashed in the episode. I guess it's only fitting - and weirdly darkly funny*, actually - that a tree itself is what took it down. An orange parson's table likewise bit the dust. Beyond that, the damage was primarily the shed.

We had expected that the tree folks would need to come back another day, but they wanted to finish the work up in the afternoon. The time after a disaster like this is also a time of opportunity for tree removal folks who really want to work. Our tree guy had already been in Bellefonte looking at other trees. (This is why I called so quickly; I wanted to secure my place at the top of his list.) By mid-afternoon, they were finished, paid, and gone.

There are things that remain to do: to have somebody come and take a look at the shed, to coordinate with friends on the removal of the firewood, to tidy up areas that are very, very messy right now. If you are an OCD type person (I tend to be, but I sort of like it, and I used to hire for it), disasters can make you quite cranky, as everything feels so out of whack. Managing your own anxiety amid times of uncertainty is a life skill; I continue to work on that.

I also came back to add that working in the field of accessibility for my final 12 years with Penn State was an absolute baptism by fire, an exercise in remaining calm, managing competing priorities, communicating, and addressing complex and high-deadline situations. 

Let's say that YOUR job, as manager of access, is to communicate the needs of a student with disabilities to faculty and staff, and coordinate accessibility efforts and accommodations for that student in very short order. 

None of the people who need to do the necessary tasks actually report to you, and most of them are not even in the same work unit as you. Some of the tasks that have to be done are ones you may not personally have the technical expertise to handle. Money is not budgeted for you to pay for most of the necessary work yourself. Here are two typical situations, just for funzies:

1) You have just discovered that there is a blind student enrolled in four courses that are already running that are probably not remotely accessible to a screen reader user. 

2) You have just learned that a deaf student, who has just been approved for live captioning, has an interactive ZOOM session that starts at 6 p.m. tonight, where teamwork will be required.

A thing I have learned in such times is that remaining calm is job one. But I digress. Anyway, that is a long way around about to tell you what you are looking at. Our tree that fell was a red oak. It stood about 105 feet tall, and may have weighed as much as 50 to 100 tons. I was curious to know how old it was so I looked it up online. You can tell the age of an oak by measuring its diameter at breast height (dbh), or 4.5 feet. You measure the circumference, and then divide by pi.

I couldn't measure the tree at breast height because the trunk was so rotten and split, so I measured it a little further up than I should have. And I couldn't quite get my measuring tape all the way around the big tree because the bottom of it was on the ground. But I got a circumference of something more than 85 inches, which gave me a dbh of 27. 

I found a chart that tells you the age based on diameter and tree type; for a red oak, that would put its age around or slightly under 200 years. My tree is BIGGER than that for the reasons I described, so I believe (and so did the tree guy) that it is (or make that WAS) well over 200 years old.

In the morning, when daylight came, I went out early and measured my tree. I sat on the tree and took selfies. I felt like I was on the Titanic, the last time it saw daylight. These would be some of the last minutes that the tree was fully a TREE, before it became kindling. It seemed almost like a holy time: just a girl, saying farewell to a beloved tree.

I took this picture and thought I'd post it here. So here is my tree. It has seen two hundred years, and more. I wish I could hear the stories it would tell. I wish I could see pictures of all of the creatures that ever lived in it, or sang upon it. I know it had a life well lived: loved by the sun, kissed by the moon. And loved by a girl. I know because that girl was me.

Farewell, my tree.

Our soundtrack song is Herman's Hermits, with Can't You Hear My Heartbeat.


*Two of the things that a disaster teaches you are to reach out to your neighbors, and to find humor wherever you can. My husband had informed several of his neighborhood contacts about our tree fall, and some of the older dudes showed up to have a personal look. I know, there's just something about a catastrophe that is fascinating. So we had several people show up and tell us - My, that was a big tree! 

One older dude from across the street showed up in his truck, wandered into our backyard for a look, and then stood talking with my husband a while. I was sitting in the front yard with the neighbor cat (who was here, by the way, when the tree fell; he lit out for home lickety-split) as they chatted, when I heard the old man talking about his neighbors, on Lutz Lane. "It may as well be called SLUTS Lane," he said. Then he made a few disparaging remarks about his neighbors. 

I wasn't sure I had heard him right at first, but then I about fell out of my chair, trying to stifle my laughter. Later that night, my husband and I, giddy from our stress and waiting and everything else, did have a good, LONG laugh about it all. Now we have, as a gift from our neighbor, a new name for a local street. I woke up this morning and said to my husband, "If you're looking for me, I'll be over on SLUTS LANE!!!!"