Whoa...Just had a neeeeear miss

Sitting at my computer here at home, I heard a crack and saw what looked like a little branch fall off a tree. Went downstairs and looked out the back window--Yikes!

A full, leafy maple branch about 16' long overall and 10-12" diameter at the base missed my back room by about 5'. Some of the small "twigs" coming off of this thing were 2"+ inches dia. and shattered like toothpicks on impact, and this was green hardwood.

Whew. Hope nothing else from the sky surprises me.

Glad you're OK (and that cows don't fly).

WOW - I thought you were "surfing" on your wireless while driving!

Glad all's well!!

Glad you are alright, you might want to get an Arborist or Tree Surgeon to take a good look at the tree.

Wouldn't this qualify as a "near hit"?

:nana:
-DF

My latest "Near miss" was pulling a Buick Skylark on a low boy trailer with no trailer brakes and coming up on dead stopped traffic at about the last place I'd ever expect!

The Ram slowed us down just peachy, and it wasn't even that close.

This was today BTW...

We just paid four grand to have an oak tree near the corner of our house cut down. It was leaning toward the house and was dropping too many branches for comfort. I consider it a good investment. It could have wound up costing a lot more than that if we hadn't had it removed.:sweat:

My parent's house had a near miss like that when a tree fell under the forces of wind a few years ago. I woke up in the middle of the night to find the branches almost touching the window of the room I was sleeping in.

needless to say I spent an entire day chopping up the tree with an axe, but still beats sleeping with a busted room....

Our neighbor's Eucalyptus had a large (I think it was about 8-10 inch diamenter; maybe more) branch fell across both theirs and our garage (I lived in an attached house so we're very close together). Most of it was on their side; it was just leaves and the smaller branches at the end on our side. Good thing the roof held up.

Anyway, the exact same tree started dieing a few months later so they cut it down along with another dead Eucalyptus and two other still live but starting to die trees that were in their back yard. The other dead one was even taller than the one in the front yard that had a branch break off. It was also near the fence bordering our back yards and was somewhat leaning towards our houses in a way that if it came down, it would take out my room first and their living room.

ABTOMAT said:

Sitting at my computer here at home, I heard a crack and saw what looked like a little branch fall off a tree. Went downstairs and looked out the back window--Yikes!

A full, leafy maple branch about 16' long overall and 10-12" diameter at the base missed my back room by about 5'. Some of the small "twigs" coming off of this thing were 2"+ inches dia. and shattered like toothpicks on impact, and this was green hardwood.

Whew. Hope nothing else from the sky surprises me.

Click to expand...

Pictures?

wow! that was pretty close. Glad to know that everything's ok.

Further inspection (it was raining cats and dogs at the time) makes it seem like about 18' long, 9" at the base, and the heavy part wasn't quite so close, but the canopy still got within 6' of the house.

The tree has an ugly stump where this came off, so I'll have to see about getting that looked at. It's a rented house so I can't count on anything. Now I just have to decide between axes or chainsaws to cut up the limb. Good firewood in there for next winter.

Doesn't look very impressive in the photos. For reference it's a little under 6' from the ground to the sill of the back window.

As your sig. line says "Size matters."

Good thing it wasn't bigger!

About 3 years ago we had a pine tree die in front of our house (about 15 feet from our bedroom window). Since we had to pay a bunch of money ($1000) to have another dead tree removed about a year before, we were in no hurry to take this one down. I called the insurance company and asked if they pay for tree removal--after all, if it fell it could smash the house or tear down the utility wires. Nope, was their reply. They'd pay for any damage AFTER it fell, but wouldn't cover taking it down. Well, Thanksgiving night 2003, at about 9:30, the wife and I heard/felt this tremendous BOOM! Ever see the movie, My Cousin Vinny, where the owl screeches and wakes up Joe Pesci, and he yells out "What the F--- was THAT!? Well, that's what I was thinking! I go outside and there's this big piece of wood laying in the driveway! That tree had busted off about 3 feet from the ground and it tree fell parallel to the house. Thank God! It was about 2 1/2 feet in diameter and almost 100 feet tall/long. It stripped branches off another pine tree as it fell and broke off a big limb from an oak tree. It also moved our propane tank a few inches! We were VERY lucky it didn't smash the house and us in it. This tree had been dead only a few months and I'd watched other dead trees to see how long they stood before falling and some have stood for years, so I figured I had some time before I had to do anything with it. We've had a few other pines die due to bark beetle infestation since then and if they're near the house, they get removed pronto.

If any of you folks have dead or sickly-looking trees near your homes, get them taken care of now. Just like Abtomat, a fine-looking tree will just "shed" a branch on a whim. Go look at a "natural" forest. Those things are messy! There are branches and junk all over the ground. Trees break all the time.

Kirk

Well, axe it was. Got a lot of firewood and managed to fill a friend's trailer with leafy tops for the dump. Chopped it up into managable lengths, probably will use the 2-man crosscut saw when it comes to bucking it into firewood. Maybe the chainsaw if I have to. Definitely need to get a heavier axe--right now have a smallish limbing axe and a medium general. A heavy felling model or even a double-bitted might be in my future.

Yeah, I'm a sucker for old-time wood cutting methods.

Oh, a couple years ago I had a 3" branch come down right on top of my Mazda. Good thing the brand was so rotten. It was the difference between some big dents and smashed roof.

Glad you are alright and did not have any property damage.

Back in February 1994 there was a nor'easter/ice storm that hit our area. I used to have two pine trees in my front yard. One decided to break and fall. It clipped the corner of my house, landed on my nighebors roof, and worst of all, fell slam across my wifes brand new Honda Del Sol. Was very sad.

My father had a pretty strange experience back in the 1970's. During a storm a huge tree fell down in the parking lot across the street from his house. Crushed the whole line of cars that my father had parked in. But not his car. His '67 VW Beetle was short enough so that the tree came to rest on the cars on either side but not his.