Big blow on Aug. 6 hardest in years on city trees
A fierce, concentrated summer storm on Aug. 6 is responsible for “wreaking havoc” on trees throughout the city.
“This storm was widespread and damages to the City’s trees were significant,” a report from city forester Paul Giroux states, citing 1,187 service requests from the public for damaged trees, more than double the number of service requests in all of 2017. On city rights of way and in city parks, 130 trees were so damaged they have to be removed. And 270 more trees need trimming to restore their health.
“After reviewing our statistics, this storm has had the largest negative impact on our trees and resources than all other previous storms recorded over the last five years,” Giroux said in the report, which goes to city council Nov. 5. The count doesn’t include all the trees damaged on private property. The storm was an intense and damaging thunderstorm in 31C heat, in which 14.7 mm of rain fell according to the weather station at the Windsor Airport. That was the fourth highest amount of rain to fall all summer, but most damaging to trees were the wind gusts, which reached speeds of 67 km/h. It was the strongest wind event since May, responsible for downing power lines and damaged trees throughout the region. The 1,187 service requests generated by the storm created a huge workload for the city’s forestry division, comprised of two supervisors and nine full-time arborists. For comparison, a big wind storm on March 8, 2017 only generated 329 work orders and the tornado that touched down in 2016 only generated 250 work orders. It took three weeks of regular hours plus 500 hours of overtime to assess the damage, prioritize the work and clean up all the woody debris, Giroux said.
“The sheer volume of maintenance required to inspect, clean up and complete all the work orders derived from this storm only adds to the division’s backlog in tree maintenance, which will further delay any plans for future preventive maintenance.” He said the significant number of new stormcaused work orders has pushed back the response time for requests from the public for inspections and inquiries about trees that are the city’s responsibility. And not all the lost trees can be replaced, due to restrictions in the city’s tree planting budget, he added. Even if they could all be replaced, “it would take between 40 and 60 years before these new trees could offer comparable environmental benefits to the city.” He estimated that the total cost from the storm, including immediate cleanup and later efforts at trimming and replanting, at more than $250,000. And this doesn’t include all the regular work that had to be delayed or deferred to accommodate all the storm-related work. He said that overtime which workers banked, to be used at a later date, “will have a significant impact on future Forestry operations for the remainder of the year as the division is trying to keep up with ongoing operations.” Giroux concludes his report by saying the event serves as reminder of the importance of regular tree maintenance. “Preventive maintenance, such as proactive area trimming, can reduce the toll and damages to our urban forest as well as the expense in cleaning up and repairing these damaged trees.”