In The Still of The Night

As Jamie Fox climbed into bed on Monday evening (23/0\8/2010) for an early night, he had no idea that Chelsea SES was about to invade his backyard.

The fallen tree that saw an invasion by Chelsea SES

 

Just after 9.30pm, Mr. Fox heard a sound like thunder in the backyard of his Chelsea Park Drive home in Chelsea Heights and was amazed to see a large tree had simply fallen over landing on the fence, his shed and the roof of his neighbour’s house.

What a mess!

The fact that this happened when it did was a little lucky in many ways. Chelsea SES train on a Monday evening and finish between 9.30pm and 10pm, so when the call came through, the entire unit was on hand and rolling, ready to go within a couple of minutes. Firstly Mr. Fox was stunned at just how quickly the team arrived with reds and blues illuminating the exterior of the house and 10 members in orange surveying the scene and then starting the tricky task of removing the offending tree without any further damage to property.

Members began trimming the tree back from both sides of the fence

Lighting was set up in both houses and work began on both sides of the fence to clear the tree. It is always difficult when a tree is resting on a number of different surfaces at varying levels, but as the smaller limbs were removed and we began to see the wood for the trees, we were confident that the tree could be cleared with a minimum of damage.

 

The tree had simply fallen over with almost no assistance from the wind

Starting to see the wood for the trees

Once the main trunk was safely down and cut up to manageable sized pieces, it was time to assess the job and the tree. Over the past few months we have been called to a number of tree jobs where the tree was already dead when it came down, both  in gardens and on nature strips and this tree, sadly, was well on the way to the same fate.

The crew even took time out for a quick happy snap

The message should be very clear, if you see that there are differences in the appearance of any of the trees on your property, if the leaves begin to disappear when all of the other trees are looking fine, don’t wait. Get them checked out by a reputable, licensed and insured, arborist straight away.

The final stage begins

 It is not that we don’t want to deal with this situation, on Monday evening there was only a slight breeze and this very substantial tree simply fell over, it could have happened at any time. Luckily there was nobody in the garden at the time but there could have been and instead of a happy ending we could have witnessed a tragedy.

Finishing up

The point is not to lay blame and is not to make anyone feel guilty; it is simply a real reminder for us all to be a little more vigilant when it comes to the beautiful trees that surround all of us in our community.

Allan gets to work cleaning up the final bits and pieces

As much of a shock as it was to Mr. Fox, the one member of the family who was right in the middle of the action was the family pet bunny Floppsy but a quick check at the end of the job found her to be completely unscathed and ready to fight another day.

Floppsy Bunny was certainly none the worse for wear following the orange invasion

Members were on scene for just over an hour and then returned to LHQ and were stood down just after 11pm. A great result for all involved, the tree safely down, damage confined to 2 broken tiles on the neighbours roof, 2 fence pallings broken and a small dent above the shed door andf most important of all, everyone home safe and sound! And the final words should go to Mr. Fox himself after wittnesing the Chelsea SES crew in action; "simply awsome"; well what can we say! Cheers Jaime, it was our pleaseure.