Storm Cleanup

The First Hour: What Not to Do

The other thing not to do is start cutting. A storm-damaged tree is loaded — bent stems, hung-up limbs and split trunks store energy that releases the instant a saw goes in, and usually not in the direction people expect. Most serious chainsaw injuries in this region happen in the two days after a windstorm, to homeowners, on their own property.

Photograph Everything Before Anything Moves

This is the step people skip and regret. Your insurer will want to see the damage as it landed, and once the crew has cleared it, that evidence is gone.

1. Wide shots firstStand back and capture the whole scene — the tree, what it hit, and the relationship between them. Get several angles.
2. Then the detailClose-ups of the damage to the structure, the break point on the tree, and anything crushed underneath.
3. Timestamp themPhone photos carry the date automatically. Do not crop or edit them.
4. Keep everything in writingSave the quote, the invoice and any arborist report. Emergency work to prevent further damage is usually covered even when the tree itself is not, but you have to be able to show it was necessary.

What Insurance Usually Covers

We are not your insurer and policies differ, so check yours — but the general shape in Washington is worth knowing before you call:

• A tree that hits an insured structure — house, garage, fence — is generally covered, including removing the tree off the structure.
• A tree that falls in the garden and hits nothing is often not covered at all. That surprises people every winter.
• Emergency work to prevent further damage — tarping, making a leaner safe, getting a trunk off a roof before the next front arrives — is usually covered, which is why the documentation matters.
• If the tree came from a neighbour’s property, it is normally still your own insurer’s problem unless the tree was demonstrably hazardous and they had been told.

How We Work a Storm Callout

1. Make it safe firstBefore any cleanup, we deal with what could still move — hangers in the canopy, a split stem, a partially uprooted tree holding on the root plate.
2. Get the load off the structureSectioned and rigged off rather than dragged, so the second impact does not do more damage than the first.
3. Assess what is leftA tree that lost a third of its canopy may be fine with a reduction, or may now be unbalanced enough to need removing. Same for the ones still standing — a neighbouring tree that was sheltered for forty years is suddenly exposed.
4. Clear and haulBrush chipped, rounds stacked or hauled, drives and paths opened.

The Cheapest Storm Work Is Done in September

Almost everything we cut out of a roof in November was deadwood, a hanger or an obvious defect in October. An autumn inspection and deadwooding is a fraction of the cost of an emergency callout and an insurance claim. If a tree is already down and it is still blowing, that is an emergency callout — call (425) 584-1233.