The Branch Manager utilized a crane to remove this tree that fell on a house on Willow Ave in Summerside, PEI.Photo: The Branch Manager
In early September Hurricane Dorian made contact with North America. While the tropical cyclone’s most dramatic effects were felt in the Bahamas where it is regarded as the worst natural disaster in the country’s history, impacts were also felt across the east coast of the United States and into Atlantic Canada. Uprooted and damaged trees have kept tree service companies in some parts of the Maritimes busy to this day, with some comparing the damage to that seen in the aftermath of 2003’s Hurricane Juan.
Nova Scotia
Halifax-based Tree Works Ltd. has been working all-day every day since the hurricane. Owner Clarence Talbot says that the damage caused by the hurricane varied wildly in the parts of Nova Scotia that he’s observed.
“There are areas with no tree damage at all,” says Talbot. “And then I found areas like the public housing in Uniacke Square (in North Central Halifax) and it was as if Hurricane Juan went through. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason why one place was devastated and another place wasn’t.”
Wileville-based ATR Arborist Services has been extremely busy, though owner Anthony Rafuse notes that most of the trees they’ve removed haven’t been on homes, they’ve been on camper trailers and RVs.
“People parked their RVs underneath trees thinking that they were going to be safe and then next thing, trees have blown down on top of them.”
Jordan Post, owner and operator of Ground to Crown Tree Services in Aylesford, says they received so many calls it was impossible to stay on top of it. Most of the work they’ve performed has been simple removals of trees that have fallen on the ground and occasionally utilizing cranes to remove trees from houses or vehicles. A job at the Willowbank Cemetery in Wolfville does stand out, however.
“Some massive old oaks came down, so there’s uprooted trees and headstones flipped over,” says Post. “You’re kind of peeking under the roots, hoping you’re not going to see any remains.”
Prince Edward Island
The damage also varied highly from one area to another in PEI. Charlottetown was spared from the most devastating impacts, while areas such as Summerside and Kensington were hit more significantly. Laird Tree Care owner Kurt Laird says that his firm had a deluge of calls, some of which took them outside of the type of jobs they typically take on.
“We did several crane removals, which is not something that we do a lot of,” says Laird. “One of them, when the tree blew over it penetrated the walls of the dining room. We had to bring in an 80 ton crane to go over the house in order to get rid of it.”
Jerry Arsenault of The Branch Manager estimates they received around 1,000 calls in the first two weeks following the hurricane. And even now that emergency calls are starting to slow, homeowners are beginning to eye other trees on their properties with suspicion wondering what might happen in the next big storm.
“A lot of people get scared; they want the big trees gone,” says Arsenault. “And there are a lot of trees with compromised roots. You can tell; the ground is broken around the roots on one side so the tree becomes unsafe for the next storm.”
New Brunswick
Significant impacts in New Brunswick were mostly limited to the southern part of the province. AJ Beaudoin of No Limits Tree Experts Inc. says that the most serious and challenging work is behind them now. One job in Bouctouche stands out as particularly challenging; a tree that was about three feet in diameter at the base was resting over a house, extending about 30 feet out.
“We ended up using a pully system to get the tree away and down without damaging a single thing,” says Beaudoin. “That was an all day job with planning and timing, but luckily the tree didn’t even dent the roof.”
Bryce Brown of Arbor Tech Tree Service credits his employee Matt Sullivan with organizing the company’s efforts, keeping his team informed of where they needed to be and performing triage on the calls. Brown notes that the impacts were most heavily felt on deciduous trees, as they still had their leaves.
“They created a sail effect,” says Brown. “I think perhaps that the soil taking in so much precipitation in combination with the sail effect on deciduous trees is what happened with that.”
In preparation for the storm, Brown says that Arbor Tech moved most of their heavy equipment to both avoid storm impacts and to have them ready to head out on calls. It turned out to be a very good move.
“We actually had a storm damaged tree uproot and fall where we would have had one of our truck chippers,” he notes.
Chasing ghosts
One of the biggest challenges for a tree service company in this circumstance is the nervousness of their potential customers. As Rafuse notes, it was not entirely uncommon to receive a call from a panicked homeowner who desperately needs a job taken care of now only to find they weren’t the only company enlisted.
“Then you arrive on the job site and someone’s already been to it, and the homeowner forgot to call you,” says Rafuse. “So, unfortunately, a lot of the time, you’re chasing after ghosts, which means I’m paying for labour and fuel to run around to work that’s already done. A couple of homeowners this week did that; it’s kind of rude.
Brown says that many customers would call and ask which company they were calling, which indicated to them that they had called several companies. Arbor Tech made sure to emphasize to customers that if they wanted to hire someone else for a job to please call them back and let them know.
“And we did have a couple of calls, and I appreciated it,” says Brown. “If we didn’t tell them, maybe they wouldn’t call us and we would have to drive an hour to Shediac or something just to look at a job that’s already done. But, fortunately, that’s not happened once.”
— Matt Jones