Residents of Guido Street in the Laurel Heights neighborhood of Oakland ventured outside Thursday morning to survey the damage caused by a blue spruce tree that fell during last night’s storm, tearing down power lines and causing the power outage of 194 PG&E customers led. As they surveyed the scene, a car pulled up and an arborist handed them a business card.
As of Thursday evening, over 60 downed trees have been reported across the city of Oakland. The damage has led to a surge in work for local arborists, who say tending to the trees is overdue and the jobs are badly needed.
Trex Donovan, a certified risk management arborist and owner of the Buena Vista Tree Service, was ready to lay off a third of his team before storm-related service calls began arriving last week. “I have more than twenty people working for me. I’ve been thinking about narrowing it down to more like 15 or 16,” he said. “It’s been slow over the holiday season so the storms are in some ways a boon for tree operations.”
Storms reliably generate revenue for arborists, but Donovan says the recent weather system has created more work than usual, due in part to the impact of economic inflation and lower consumer spending.
“With money tight for people due to inflation and everything else, many homeowners have been deferring maintenance in recent months,” he said.
Delayed maintenance not only hurts arborists financially, it also makes trees more vulnerable. Diseased and dying trees remain. Dead or precariously positioned limbs grow over houses and streets. All of these are more likely to fall over in a storm. However, arborists, including Donovan, are confident that seeing the damage from the recent storm will prompt Oakland homeowners to hire experts who can do the necessary preventative work.
“That will concern us. This will make people more aware of their trees and will help revitalize the tree industry for at least a few months.”
However, deferred assessments and cuts are not solely to blame. In the East Bay, harsh climate conditions have set the stage for tree failure (the term arborists use for trees that fall completely). Persistent annual droughts have resulted in damaged roots, while outbreaks of moisture – like that caused by last week’s bomb cyclone – have loosened the soil and weakened the support of underground root systems.
JMV Tree Service workers place cedar branches in a shredder. Credit: Robin Buller
In the run-up to Wednesday’s bomb cyclone, East Bay arborists braced for widespread damage and a hectic work schedule.
“I moved all the jobs I had on the calendar to next week so all my people were ready to go,” Donovan said. “Chippers were ready, chainsaws were ready, stump grinders were ready, all the trucks were empty, landfills were lined up.”
A JMV Tree Services worker explained that they, too, had prepared for an onslaught. “You have to be on the phone,” said Luís on Thursday afternoon, admitting that it had been a particularly busy day.
When storms affect entire districts, individual operations often become multiple jobs for experienced arborists. With damage concentrated in certain parts of the city – particularly in the Oakland hills – one job can lead to another.
On Thursday, the Buena Vista Tree Service responded to a fallen tree on Marlow Drive near Lake Chabot. “I thought it was an earthquake,” said tenant Mary Lou, describing the loud cracking sound the tree made as it fell and sliced through her front fence.
When Donovan and his team arrived at the scene, they found that the house next door had also suffered tree damage: a large branch had fallen onto the roof, bending a gutter and putting pressure on a power line.
“We called PG&E, we called 311, and after we didn’t get anything from them, I also called the Oakland Fire Department,” said Alan, the homeowner, who had concerns about the safety of the power lines. With no one responding to his calls, Alan immediately hired Buena Vista.
Still, Donovan warned that homeowners should do their due diligence when hiring anyone for tree work. He said price gouging is more common after bad weather.
“There are a lot of companies that go for price gouging in emergency situations,” he said. “They tend to charge double or triple what they would normally charge.”
To avoid overpaying, homeowners should get multiple quotes whenever possible and keep an eye on average prices.
“A typical daily wage for a crew of five or six people is about four thousand dollars,” Donovan said. “If you’re being billed seven or ten thousand dollars for a day’s work — and it’s not after business hours and it’s a standard Monday through Friday workday — just be careful.”
oaklandside.org
https://oaklandside.org/2023/01/06/downed-trees-storm-east-bay-arborists/
