Preparing your home, property ahead of severe storms

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Trees toppled over across central Ohio Sunday night during severe storms that churned multiple confirmed tornados.  

A teenager remains in the hospital after a tree fell onto her home and trapped her underneath. Columbus Fire was able to free her and she was taken to Nationwide Children's Hospital in stable condition.  

The tree that fell was a massive pin oak tree, according to ISA Certified Arborist James Benedetto of Arborist Solutions.

"You could have a healthy tree, you could have a sturdy tree in the wrong wind, hit it in a pattern that it hasn't built its strength up for, and it could fail,” Benedetto said. “You get 80 mile an hour gusts coming from the opposite way. And now you have a tree on the ground.” 

Benedetto has been working with trees for more than a decade and is a Risk Assessment Qualified arborist. He said there is no sure-fire way to prevent a tree from being taken down in a storm, but with the proper care and specific attention, the risk can be mitigated. 

"Anyone can manage their trees as long as they're aware of the risks and I think people can keep a lot more trees if they're informed of the risks that they actually have, rather than kind of like a perceived risk,” Benedetto said. “A healthy tree doesn't mean a safe tree. There are pathogens, fungi that will attack a healthy tree, and you have no idea. So really, in my opinion, it comes down to looking at the tree and looking at each tree as its own. It really comes down to knowing what kind of tree it is like. Species can make a big difference. Knowing what fungi might attack the tree and seeing the body language that the tree is giving you to see if there's any, any defects.” 

Once a tree is diagnosed, it's easier to decide what kind of care it needs. Benedetto said there are things homeowners can look for before calling an arborist.  

"If you see any type of mushrooms forming at the base or above where the root zone of the tree would be, that's a huge sign,” he said. “If you hear cracking when you're around your tree in the wind, that's a large sign. You want to make sure that that's checked out or, if there's a lot of branches that are dead or peeling bark. Typically, when you see something that snapped off above the ground, there is some type of trunk defect that maybe it was formed when it was really young, or there's some type of, you know, parasitic wood fungi that's going after it. Be a little more wary of trees after, like, heavy, long rainfalls followed by winds. That's a lot of the time when we'll see, like, conifer trees fall over.”

Falling trees can be a major issue for power companies also. Forestry Manager for AEP Ohio Dale Hopkins said trees are a primary cause of power outages in Ohio.   

"That's either, as I said, either through growing it and contacting the lines, which we work to prevent by trimming the trees back, but then also trees that fall from outside of our right away,” Hopkins said. “On any given day, we have 400 tree crews out working in the neighborhoods as part of our four-year term cycle and as we're out there, we're looking for trees that can either grow into the power lines or fall into the power line.” 

Trees growing into power lines, trees falling on power lines, or trees uprooting lines can force an outage for hours. That's why Hopkins said they try to be proactive with preventative measures.  

"We have about 32,000 miles of line,” he said. “We trim close to half a million trees on those on any given year, as part of our four-year cycle trim program and then as part of our Danger Tree program, where we're looking at trees outside the roadway that could fall into that, probably close to another hundred thousand trees are being taken down to prevent them from falling. So, we're out working to provide safe, reliable service for our customers. And, you know, our team is working with property owners to talk to them about the work that we need to do on their property, not only in preparation for a storm that's going to be, you know, coming at any given time. But this is preventative maintenance to work to prevent power outages from occurring." 

Educating customers about where to plant new trees is another part of the preventative process.

"Spring is when customers are starting to do their yard work,” Hopkins said. “You know, they're looking for places where they can plant a tree to beautify their property, enhance their neighborhood. So first of all, we want them to do is look up, you know, are there obstructions where they want to put that tree? Is there a power line above that? Are there other obstructions that tree is going to grow into? And we got to think beyond what that tree is the day that we're planting it. How tall is that tree going to get at maturity? How why does that canopy going to get? So we always ask that our customers don't plant anything in the right of way." 

The Emerald Ash was a huge problem for AEP in years past due to the Emerald Ash bore decimating the population and killing trees throughout the Midwest and Ohio. Since that time, Hopkins said the biggest problem tree for them is the Silver Maple. 

"Silver maple tree is a big, wide growing tree grows very fast, but the tree that grows very fast like that is typically a weaker woody tree, so they're going to be more susceptible to storm damage,” he said. “White pine trees -- another fast-growing evergreen tree. We have a lot of storm damage from the spruce trees. They tend to uproot, you know, they have a shallow root system." 

No matter the tree, when severe storms hit, there is a chance it can come down.