Ice Storm!!!!

[CwbyClmr]

Ok, being a new business and not having much experience in ice storms I have a few questions. Nice of mother nature to give central Illinois a nice big ice storm over the last two days.
Is it ok to chip frozen branches?
And climbing in frozen trees, not my idea of the safest climbing time but if you don't have a bucket truck and gotta get the job done what do you do?

 

[M.D. Vaden]

Ok, being a new business and not having much experience in ice storms I have a few questions. Nice of mother nature to give central Illinois a nice big ice storm over the last two days.
Is it ok to chip frozen branches?
And climbing in frozen trees, not my idea of the safest climbing time but if you don't have a bucket truck and gotta get the job done what do you do?

What were the temperatures like at night?

 

[CwbyClmr]

Single digits.

 

[doggonetrees]

When I worked for the power company here, we didn't climb the tree unless had to - remove from wire, etc. Climbing poles when they are covered in ice is no fun, but it can be done. On the ROW crew, we chipped frozen limbs with no problem, but then again the chipper belonged to the company. Only problem we had was getting the wood to the chipper with all the ice on the ground.

 

[Tree Machine]

Illinois is my neighbor state to the west. This was a huge storm that started way down in NE Texas/Gulf of Mexico. It must have grabbed a huge gulp of really moist air, and then started churning in a NNE direction.

As it moved up through the central states it brought everyone rain, wide scale, consistent, all day and when it got several hundred K from where it was born, it created wind. I mean, w i nn nnnn dddd. It was widespred, a couple thousand Km ( 1200 mi) wide and heading north and east. When the system got into the mid-states, it was met with artic system coming down out of Canada, through Iowa, & surrounding states, it a was cold high pressure. Really cold. It was poised to kaslamm the warm, low-pressure system, at a latitude of about where Chicago is. This meeting of vastly different temperature and pressure systems, and the fact that they were both really large systems to begin with means it affected a LOT of people, ;specially tree guys. It went from continuous rain all day long, no wind and unseasonably warm (Thursday) to windy as???? and COLD and freezing and snow flurries AND windy. Wow! All day blowing and gusting. I think the areas around the lake Michigan lakeshore areas got it bad. 60 mph (100 Km / hr) gusts and the temperature is still dropping by the hour. The winds were wicked all day. I had three calls of blowdowns by 3:00pm, so I went out in it to pull blue spruces off of houses up and into dark. It was WinNddY and made for challenging conditions to climb in.

Cwby got some of the bands where the rain and the cold mixed it up perfectly, but the kind of ice storm where you actually have ice building up in layers, that was not this kind of storm except in places. This storm was about that everything that got really soaked, then froze furrroze. Day, soak. Night rain and cold. Next day big winds, continuous, all day, not letting up til night. Temperature plummet all day, hard freeze overnight (Friday) and frigid, blue, calm day Saturday to work the damage and below-freezing temps predicted for like the next 7 days.


LOTS of deadwood got blown out. I think all and all, it was pretty good for the trees. The strong survived, the weakest were culled Lot's of work over the next coming months climbing out hangers and assessing for Winter crown reductions. Bidniz is good for all us treeguys on this one, nothing catastrophic, just a good, hard (cold) shakedown and a good, sustained bump in business for the winter.

 

[ddhlakebound]

We got hit pretty hard here with the ice too. The drenching rain which preceded it made for some very soggy root balls, then .25 inches of ice coated everything up nice and heavy. The last comparable ice storm I can remember here was in '89, so its been a long time since our trees were tested with ice weight and wind.

We had a fair amount of trees uproot, but the bulk of the damage was to elms and cedars losing limbs. Not alot of pines around here, but the ones we have also took some damage, mostly from large limbs breaking off at the trunk. There were also a few stem failures, sending the whole tree crashing. The whole tree failures weren't any specific species, just the weak trees being culled.

From what I've seen here, the trees which have the most damage were elms which had been topped. Working at one customers house, clearing his service drop to his house and store, limbs were falling regularly from his topped elms. (We didn't top them) Directly across the street, his neighbors elms (untopped) had about 10% as much damage. He now understands (in part at least) why topping is bad. His trees are even more wrecked than they were before.

Next door to my partners house is a old silver maple, roughly 48" dbh, which we had given the owner a cheap quote to remove while we were still working ROW. He decided to wait, and it the ice the tree began to lean, with compression and upheaval in the root ball. It formerly sat straight, now its leaning 10-15 degrees. When we were looking at it (just wanted to see) the owner was standing there, basically waiting for the sales pitch. It never came, as we don't have access to the same equipment as when we gave him the original bid. It dawned on him as we left that this tree was going to cause him either alot more damage, or at least triple the expense to have removed than last winter. "When do you think it'll fall?" "No telling, but I'd be worried the first time we get 3+ inches of rain and a strong north wind. Good luck."

Its gonna be a very busy week next week.

 

[Tree Machine]

Eeek. Much worse than here.

 

[beowulf343]

Cwby, are you questioning climbing frozen trees or ice covered trees?
Frozen trees are not a huge problem-either climb them with a rope or make sure you really sink your spikes. Some limbs can get a little brittle but still no big deal. About the only time I've had problems with a frozen tree was a big beech removal I had one January-couldn't sink my spikes into it to save my life! Ended up doing it spikeless.

Ice covered trees are another story however. Been on several ice storms (the worst being Canada in 98 of course.) Climbed trees so thick with ice that your gaff never touched the bark-the biggest concern was the ice suddenly giving away and sliding down the trunk. Always tie in twice! (Of course those were my young and foolish days also.) Also be very cautious of the limbs. They have alot of extra weight hanging off of them. Once again, always tie in twice (or more.) Now days, if its just a light coating of ice, I carry a one handed sledge up the tree with me and just beat the ice off the trunk. Always double wrap my lanyard also-it may not keep you from sliding all the way down the tree, but it will slow you down.

 

[CwbyClmr]

That would be trees covered in ice. Not too bad, just a thin layer on the top portion of the branches. I should be fine with spikes then right? I'll give it a shot if it comes to that.
Thanks alot.

 

[rebelman]

Big ladders really help on ice covered trees. I like lakebounds post about the topped elms falling apart, and the nontopped doing well. I try to point stuff out like that to customers, but's it's one person at a time. Stay safe, ya'll, we barely missed it here.

 

[clearance]

Big ladders really help on ice covered trees.

Good God. Big freaking ladders and ice covered everthing, sounds like a disaster in the making. How about sharp spurs and a double wrapped steelcore?

 

[rebelman]

I'M sure that's fine windfirming. Must be extra rough with those calk boots.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Need some help? I have gear and insurance, I could bring more help too.

Maybe even a guy with a big chipper.

It's about 4 hrs one way to the Sherman exit from where I live. A 3 day minimum would bee nessesary due to the need to stay overnight.

How big of an area was hit?