Driver killed by a falling eucalyptus tree on road

[bcla]

I guess it isn't that uncommon, but this hit kind of close because I've driven this road before. We had some pretty nasty rain last weekend with extremely high winds.

https://www.berkeleyside.com/2019/0...mashes-car-kills-driver-on-uc-berkeley-campus

I've heard of similar cases in San Francisco, although different trees. One woman was killed by a redwood tree branch in a parking lot, while another woman was in a city park when a major oak branch fell and left her quadriplegic. But eucalyptus trees seem to have particular problems in California. They've adapted pretty well to California, but they still have shallow root systems and seem to fall a lot of these high wind/heavy rain conditions. I've certainly experienced a lot of bark falling off everywhere after a storm, since there are a lot of them in our regional park system here.

We have some in our neighborhood that I can see from our windows, but I don't believe any are close enough to possibly fall on our house.

 

[a1tinkfans]

One would think there’d be trimming or doing something to avoid these types of tragedies.
They ll claim act of God and no coverage for a claim.. a second tragedy.

 

[DLgal]

This happened in our city last month during some high winds. We have a ton of eucalyptus trees here. They are so huge! I'm glad there aren't any near our house. The woman killed here was in her own driveway in her car on the way to work. She was in her 30s. Very sad.

 

[EMom]

A couple of years ago, I was driving and a BIG tree began to fall across the road. Thank goodness I was only going 30 mph, because even with me braking hard, I barely stopped in time to avoid the tree landing on top of my car. It blocked my lane, a large median, and most of the opposite lane of traffic. We'd had tons of rain and it just fell...sort of in slow motion. It was scary to realize if I had been a second or two ahead, it would have crushed my car.

 

[arminnie]

Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, was paralyzed when a tree fell on him while jogging. That's why he's in a wheelchair.

 

[mnrose]

Those trees are notoriously dangerous. The limbs are huge and will drop with zero advance warning. Not a fan of those trees. They grow far too fast in the California climate, and are not stable. Should never have been planted. Plus, in a fire, they explode....not burn....explode. There was a house up the hill from us when we lived in California which COULD NOT get fire insurance until every one of those trees on their property were removed. Made the whole neighborhood safer.

 

[SolNest]

I was canoeing homosassa springs maybe five years ago when a giant cypress fell just feet behind me. It was very crowded that day, and fortunate that the tree did not hit and kill anyone.

 

[barkley]

eucalyptus trees are CRAZY dangerous. those suckers will EXPLODE if subjected to very low temps.

i remember back in the 80's driving home around 2 a.m. in napa during a very bad cold snap. the highway which had old eucalyptus trees in the center divider had several branches i had to dodge and there was a sound like gunfire periodically-the next day on the news they showed the path i had taken and after i had passed through many more trees exploded leaving debris everywhere (it looks like when you smash a big icicle-just shatters all over the place).

 

[arminnie]

Those trees are notoriously dangerous. The limbs are huge and will drop with zero advance warning. Not a fan of those trees. They grow far too fast in the California climate, and are not stable. Should never have been planted. Plus, in a fire, they explode....not burn....explode. There was a house up the hill from us when we lived in California which COULD NOT get fire insurance until every one of those trees on their property were removed. Made the whole neighborhood safer.

I remember the Oakland Firestorm of 1991. Those exploding eucalyptus trees were a huge part of the problem.

I remember being in Foster City (on the other side of the Bay at least 20 miles south of San Francisco) watching the fire from the San Mateo bridge. When I was buying a home the next year I remember looking at one ( I think it was in Belmont) that was on a hill with a lot of very dry land around it and only one road in - I kept thinking that in the case of fire I'd be in trouble.

 

[barkley]

I remember the Oakland Firestorm of 1991. Those exploding eucalyptus trees were a huge part of the problem.

I remember being in Foster City (on the other side of the Bay at least 20 miles south of San Francisco) watching the fire from the San Mateo bridge. When I was buying a home the next year I remember looking at one ( I think it was in Belmont) that was on a hill with a lot of very dry land around it and only one road in - I kept thinking that in the case of fire I'd be in trouble.

we were in vallejo and saw the smoke creeping over the bay. i remember when we bought our first home a few months later we went with the homeowner's insurance company that we remembered seeing on the news with the most reps cutting paper checks to evacuees at the centers.

i've thought of those fires allot what with napa, redding and paradise more recently

 

[low-key]

I never trusted them things

 

[bcla]

I remember the Oakland Firestorm of 1991. Those exploding eucalyptus trees were a huge part of the problem.

I remember being in Foster City (on the other side of the Bay at least 20 miles south of San Francisco) watching the fire from the San Mateo bridge. When I was buying a home the next year I remember looking at one ( I think it was in Belmont) that was on a hill with a lot of very dry land around it and only one road in - I kept thinking that in the case of fire I'd be in trouble.

Saw it firsthand. Power was shut down at the computer lab I was using, so a bunch of us found a way to get up to a higher floor to see what was happening. It was a little hard to see from ground level other than the smoke, but from 10 floors up we could see the hills were literally on fire. I used to ride my bike up on Grizzly Peak Road/Tunnel Road, but avoided it after the fire. I checked it out after a month and it was lots of burned homes on Tunnel Road. I heard there was a criticism of eucalyptus trees exploding in the heat and spreading the fire, but the really bad thing was untreated wood roof shingles. If I saw a house that was still standing between homes that burned down, it almost always had composite/fiberglass shingles.

 

[amcnj]

Unfortunately trees do fall on homes, cars and people. Rain soaked ground combined with wind, or heavy ice or snow on limbs can cause a lot of problems. Especially with trees planted in the small strips of ground between sidewalks and the roads, which prevents their roots from spreading out properly in all directions. Some years back towns were almost totally blocked off due to many, many trees coming down, and it took weeks to clear them all. That led to some towns no longer allowing trees to be planted right along the roads.

Some of the state roadways around here did cut back trees within a certain distance of the road lanes, but there are still plenty near the sides of smaller roads.

 

[bcla]

One would think there’d be trimming or doing something to avoid these types of tragedies.
They ll claim act of God and no coverage for a claim.. a second tragedy.

Apparently they have been going through various tree maintenance, including identifying suspect trees to be trimmed and/or removed.

The University of California should be insured against this sort of thing, but still - someone died.

I found a photo of this. Compared to the downed tree photo, there are two eucalyptus trees where there is now only one. This is right next to the Hearst Greek Theatre, although I'm not sure if it fell in another direction it could damage it. There are trees like this all throughout campus. There are some lining the Greek Theatre that could theoretically fall on the seating areas. Nothing quite like those around the football stadium though.

https://goo.gl/maps/o8PxthTm3ZC2

 

[AndreaDM]

This happened in my city a few months ago, a beautiful young girl who had just started her freshman year of college (graduated from my DD's high school) was in the car with her father and a tree fell on their car killing her and seriously injuring him. We had a lot of rain and the ground was very soft causing the tree to fall. It was just devastating for our community and that poor family. That, along with my recent bad car accident and some other ones in our area have really amped up my anxiety while driving.

 

[a1tinkfans]

I recall other tree incidents...Central Park, a while back.
Sad.

 

[PleasejointheFarque]

"Here at home we call eucalyptus trees "Widow makers".

as kids we were taught not to camp under them, they drop branches any time, regardless of weather.