Extreme Cold
I’m an arborist. I was looking at this tree on one job site, and I just got a weird feeling. It was unusual, though; there were no signs of rot, SGRs, weakness, root zone flooding, included bark, etc.
But I just got this feeling like, “This seems like a better job for the bucket truck.” So, to the dismay of everyone, I took the time to bring around the bucket and set up the outriggers, etc.
Well, I got up there, flopped the top, and suddenly the entire tree basically disintegrated. Two eight-foot sections broke away at the bottom of my cut seconds after the top swung down.
It was like the tree just decided, “If I’m going to go down, I’m going down in a blaze of glory.” Luckily there were no targets nearby.
Had I not decided to use the bucket, I would have had a nice 60-foot fall along with the large sections that likely would have turned me into a paste.
Even after looking at the logs, I couldn’t really tell why they gave away. My best guess is there were cracks due to the extreme cold the week before.