Extreme winds challenged central Albertans to try to keep everything that wasn’t already nailed down in their yard from blowing away last week.
Gerard Fournier with For Trees Company notes they had a very large conifer tree come down in Didsbury on Thursday night and block part of a Town street. He notes the crews were able to safely clean it up on Friday morning. Fournier says “luckily the leaves are not on the trees yet, otherwise there would be a lot more widespread damage but there’s been some reports of widespread damage here and there kind of thing. Not a lot of damage but certainly there’s some damage trees out there and I think after the storm is done and people are out looking at their trees, we’ll probably hear quite a bit more.”
Fournier points out that when dealing with a storm that includes high winds the number one thing to look for is downed power lines. He says “you know that is definitely an emergency situation. You might want to call 911, if there is a chance of a fire or you see sparks. Definitely you want to call your utility company right away and don’t approach trees like that when there is a down power line, that is probably the number one things not to do.”
He says it is always a good idea to get the trees in your yard checked by an arborist for obvious warning signs that they might be compromised.
