Three days later on Monday, Parks and Parkways was in Jackson Square and removed the tree. But Friday wasn’t the first time part of the tree broke off.
NEW ORLEANS — A loud bang and then screams erupted in Jackson Square on a Friday afternoon as a tree branch fell on a teenager. The part of the living oak tree held him captive, and witnesses say many rushed to try to pull him out. He was then taken to the hospital.
Three days later on Monday, Parks and Parkways was in Jackson Square and removed the tree. But Friday wasn’t the first time part of the tree broke off.
According to the city, the tree was inspected on June 27, the day the first branch fell.
“The mature live oak tree was inspected by Parks and Parkways arborists on June 27 while they carried out clean-up operations to remove a large defective branch (known as a guidewood). The tree was inspected again on June 28th. It was then decided to make another cut on a smaller dead branch and reassess the tree’s health and balance once special equipment was made available to access the site. If the arborist’s inspection reveals an imminent risk of failure, a tree will be removed immediately. Based on the two remaining sections of the tree, our arborists have concluded that there is no increased risk of additional large branch failures or entire tree failures,” the city said in a statement to WWLTV.
We went to Jackson Square with a tree specialist on Monday. Timothy Benton, owner of Benton Tree Services, said the tree was rotten on the inside but looked reasonably healthy on the outside.
“I didn’t see any jagged cracks, I didn’t see any dominant connections, nothing on the lower trunk indicated the tree was going to fail anytime soon,” Benton said.
What is evident, Benton said, is that there was shear plane separation.
“Let’s say you have two branches that grow close to each other but aren’t really connected. So when that tears off, there’s a flat surface left where it split off, and typically on a live oak tree it’s jagged and looks like a jagged rectangular pattern,” Benton said.
Benton said between the fall of the first branch, the separation of the shear plane, and the decaying wood, the dynamics of the tree changed.
“One side fell and the side that’s left now isn’t balanced, so because of the physics, there’s a tremendous amount of twisting on that remaining branch,” Benton said. “Usually that’s fine, usually a live oak tree can handle that, but there was shear plane entrapment further down the trunk that caused the failure.”
www.wwltv.com
https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/local/orleans/investigation-continues-into-health-of-tree-that-fell-in-jackson-square-new-orleans-local-news/289-5c2bea26-2ce7-4a8c-b316-d27b0972b92f
