Homeowners Come Out From Under Downed Trees

By Shannon Hicks

Like so many homeowners in Newtown, Connie and Mike Koch were not planning to need the services of a tree company any time soon when they woke up last Wednesday morning. But after a tornado spent just a few minutes in town on May 16 (see related story), leaving miles of downed telephone poles and trees in its wake, the Koches found themselves in fact needing to call on some experts to help them.

A sizable oak tree to the west of the couple’s Pearl Street home could not hang on during the late afternoon storm last week and it fell onto the roof of the house. The tree fell at a hard slant and so fast that it lodged itself into the edge of the roof, about five feet up from the gutters.

It actually looked, once the tree fell, like the trunk had collapsed onto itself, which in part is exactly what happened. The strong winds just helped that collapse happen faster than it would have had nature continued to quietly pick away at the tree’s interior.

Rob McCulloch and Newtown Tree Service were at the property by noon on Tuesday, doing their second of at least three jobs that day. That was the soonest the company could get to the property. Mr McCulloch and his employees had been working steadily since the storm, including nearly 24 hours straight almost immediately after the storm hit. Between Wednesday night and Tuesday afternoon he had put more than 600 miles on his truck, driving in Newtown alone.

He has done countless assessments and has seen a lot of damage. The hardest hit area was in the Rock Ridge-Drummers Lane-Cedar Hill-Greenbriar area.

“There’s a lot you don’t even see in people’s backyards,” he said. “A lot of trees were uprooted. In some cases those were trees that grew on rocks, ledges, or in swampy areas. Others looked like live, good sturdy trees.”

Newtown Tree Service has, since the storm, been working closely with the Newtown Public Works Department. Mr McCulloch has two of his own crews working, plus one from Kodiak Tree Experts. Since Sunday he has also been working with a crew from Massachusetts, led by a friend of his, Jim Tuccerone, who also used to work for Newtown Tree. He has also enlisted the help of A-Quick Pick Crane Service, Inc, a Shelton-based company he has come to depend on any time he has a job that requires crane work.

“I’m using just about every piece of equipment I can come up with,” he said. “And the town, they’ve been extraordinary helpful. Traffic, cones, anything — they’ve been helping us get anything we ask for.”

Thirteen- and 14-hour days have become the norm — although Public Works Director Fred Hurley told everyone to take Sunday off, said Mr McCulloch — and he does not expect to stop doing storm-related work for another six weeks. “I may lose some of my regular customers because of this,” he admitted, “but I feel a necessity to get to the emergencies first.”

He was still receiving storm-related calls earlier this week.

“After a storm like this, it usually takes three to five days for people to fully examine everything,” he said. “Homeowners may not walk their property entirely, so it might be a landscaper who notices something.”

Pointing at the exposed core of the tree at the Koch home, Mr McCulloch picked at dark and insect-eaten wood that led to the tree’s downfall a few days earlier.

“This tree had some internal damage, but that wasn’t obvious before the storm,” he said. “This is what happened to a lot of trees last week. They weren’t ready to come down, but the storm killed them.”

Last week, Mr McCulloch had arranged for the crew that did the cleanup work at 5 Key Rock Road, the home of Tina and Rod Poster, onto which a tree also fell. The tree landed on one corner of the home, destroying the living room. Support beams landed on the back of a couch that had been in front of a window facing the road, and part of the air conditioning system along with debris from the ceiling and attic dropped into the room.

Within 24 hours of the storm, cleanup was well underway at the Poster property. It was one of the first homes Mr McCulloch responded to, in fact, and was another example of companies and town departments working together. Newtown Parks & Rec employee John Benvenuti was diverting traffic on Route 302 away from its northwest intersection with Key Rock, which kept traffic limited to only the vehicles traveling north (from the Hattertown Road side of Key Rock).

Tree and highway department crews had their equipment parked along much of the length of Key Rock, and the buzz of chainsaws and chippers was prevalent all day.

“This is undoubtedly the most damage I’ve seen yet,” Mr McCulloch said on May 17. “A few others are bad, but nowhere’s as bad as this.

“Of everyone in town, I think they’re suffered the worst. There are no trees left in their back yard. They’re all gone.”

By mid-Thursday afternoon Mr McCulloch said he had fielded “probably 75 calls” in the previous 22 hours. “We’ve been working steadily. Everyone has.”

Across the street, Mary Obre watched as her neighbor’s yard was cleared.

“We have some damage, but everything else pales when you see something [like the damage at the Poster home],” she said. “People often say ‘Thank God they’re all right,’ but still, when you see 30 years of your life hit like that, it’s so sad.”

Looking across the expanse of her neighbors’ yard, where many additional trees had been snapped in half or had fallen, she said, “This was such a strong storm. Some of those were healthy trees, with green leaves, roots and all.”

Mrs Obre’s house had been threatened during the storm, but the trees that fell missed her home. In the front yard one trunk of a large tree that was forked at its base fell east, away from the house. The second trunk was still standing on Thursday, but Mrs Obre had decided to have it cut down.

“We have some siding down, and the Plexiglas on the porch blew right out. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” she said.

Back on Pearl Street as the oak was being successfully removed from their roof on Tuesday afternoon, Connie and Mike Koch were pleased with how well the job went, and knew that they had relatively minimal damage compared to others. Both had grown up in the Midwest’s Tornado Alley, and knew almost immediately that last week’s weather event was a tornado.

“We knew from past experience — the skies, the wind — what that was,” said Mrs Koch.

“Out there you don’t have to wait for someone from the government to tell you it’s a tornado. You just know,” said Mr Koch, referring to The National Weather Service’s delay last weekend in confirming what many residents already suspected.

Mrs Koch watched as Hugo Bermudes, a Newtown Tree Service employee, cut the tree that had been on her house into small segments after it had been lifted from the house by the A-Quick Pick crane operator.

“We didn’t have any water damage, from what we could tell when that was up there. Now we’ll be able to really see what’s going on,” she said. “But we were really blessed. It could have been worse, and we had people ready to help us.”

Rob McCulloch had similar sentiments.

“It has been quite an experience, this past week,” he said. “People are on top of helping each other. We’ve had everything — dinners, water, help — being offered. There have been some kind acts that have been above and beyond.

“The town definitely did a great job keeping up with everything, and we’re proud to have been a part of that,” he added. “I wouldn’t wish this again, but I would be happy to help them again.”