The hail you see here rimming the grass and sidewalk doesn't look or sound as fierce as it did when it fell. The marble-sized hail melted quickly when it hit the pavement; still very hot after our 90* day.
This tree is not in our yard, thank Heaven! These neighbors have lost 4 or 5 trees in the last few months. I couldn't believe how shallow the root bed was for this oak. The section you see here was taller than I am (5'9") and wider as well, but the footprint of it was only about 6-7" deep! The house across the street from me lost a number of trees this way during Hurricane Fran but their trees left a hole 3-4' deep. (Click to embiggen)
A little closer. I think the patterns of the roots are interesting.
The tree is more than 12" in diameter and I'd venture it's at least 60' tall. I wonder why the root bed was so shallow? I always thought that oaks (especially) and other large trees would have very deep root beds. It fell fairly close to their house (even though it doesn't look like that here). They were lucky!
Here is the top part of the fallen tree. You can see the other tree that got damaged when the oak fell. The people who live here were on their way out of town when this happened. Needless to say, they had to postpone their trip for a bit.
This is the "foot print". How on earth could that shallow hole have supported a tree that large for so many years?
17 comments:
This is really surprising. I'm sorry to see these trees lost, but am absolutely amazed at the shallowness of the holes they left.
Unbelievable! We see so much tornado damage and the uprooting of trees and I have never seen such a shallow "foot print". Whew!
We have a ginormous oak on our property and you can tell it has a sizable root system. Those look like they were just sitting on top of the ground! Weird.
Yikes! Glad you weren't harmed or damaged there missy :)
We've had high winds and night rains is all.
Amazing that we got none of it.
That kind of thing amazes me too...you'd think that they'd have roots all OVER the place, particularly sunk deep into the ground.
It is amazing Judy. Your questions about these shallow roots would be mine, too! I too always thought that Oak Trees had very deep roots....! And you are so right about your neighbors being lucky...! When you think of the damage these trees could have done to their home or car....Especially that big big 609 footer! Scary!
Those photos are amazing, and I, too, am surprised that the root system seems so shallow.
Must have been quite a storm! One could get all philosophical about how a person need deep roots to withstand the storms of life.
Did the hail cause you any damage!?
I don't know what to make of the tree. Is it possible the ground sunk in once the tree fell?
I'm full of questions today :)
Pretty scary stuff.
Those are some pretty impressive photos....we have a tree in the back....a huge Ponderosa Pine that fell and took out three other trees....the guy across the road is building a log home for his folks in Montana and used it for the roof support beams.
I wondered that too. When we had major wind in MS, I thought the pines would go first and some did. But the oak actually uprooted completely. Now, how did this storm miss us?
Yikes. I'm glad everyone is OK. The photos are really interesting. My friend Boyd in Minneapolis posted about losing his garden this past weekend in a hail storm.
I think the severe drought we have all experienced recently has weakened the big old trees and they just give up.:(
I've noticed this before. As kids my brother and I use to play on a mighty uprooted tree on the edge of a lake - somewhere I have a photo.
They are lovely trees - it's a shame.
They were lucky it missed their home. It is very strange that it's root system was so shallow. I must say I do like the wood at the end of the garden they have despite the risk. We don't have so much space here in the UK.
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