Emergency Storm Damage Cleanup In Burford, Ontario

Open Ground Changes What Emergency Storm Damage Cleanup Looks Like

Sheltered village streets and open township concessions do not fail the same way in the same wind.

In the village, trees stand among other trees and buildings, and what usually goes is a limb rather than a whole tree. Out on open ground a single mature tree takes the full load with nothing upwind of it to break the flow, and what goes is more often the entire tree, root plate and all.

Loose sand makes that worse, because it grips a root plate less firmly than clay does. A tree that would have held on heavier soil can lift here, complete with a saucer of root and sand, and leave a crater.

What To Do Before Anyone Arrives

Stay clear, and keep clear of the parts of the property you cannot see properly.

Treat anything near a wire as live — including a fence, a gate or a machine the tree happens to be resting on — and get the utility out before us.

Photograph it from several angles before anything is moved. That evidence cannot be reconstructed later and your insurer will want it.

Then ring and describe what is bearing on what, because that is what sets the order we work in.

How Emergency Storm Damage Cleanup Gets Ordered

More emergency storm damage cleanup calls arrive after a bad night than any crew can answer, so they are ranked by consequence rather than by sequence.

Live services and anything resting on an occupied building come first, along with whatever is sealing the only route off a property — which out here can mean a single farm lane.

Next come sheds, implements, fence lines and anything parked, plus hangers suspended above a footpath or a lane.

A trunk lying safely in a field can hold until morning. Still emergency storm damage cleanup, just not at two o'clock.

Loaded Wood Is What Injures People

Nothing thrown by a storm is sitting still. It is under tension, compression, or pinned beneath something heavier.

Cut into that in the wrong sequence and the stored energy releases at once. That is the mechanism behind most chainsaw injuries to occasional users, and the reason a thrown tree should be left untouched until somebody who does it daily has assessed it.

On a farm there is a second hazard worth naming: a tree down across a fence line means loose stock, and getting an animal back is frequently more urgent than getting the tree cut. Say so when you ring and we will treat it that way.

Afterwards

Making it safe and clearing it up are separate stages, and often separate days.

The emergency storm damage cleanup itself is chipping, blocking the timber, clearing the lane or the drive, and raking off. Where a tree has come off a building we leave the damaged section for the adjuster and take the rest.

If a root plate has lifted, the crater wants backfilling and consolidating properly. On sand it will otherwise keep slumping for a couple of years.