Huge Poplar Trees Fall on Monticello Avenue Home
Homeowner Bill Bryant said he asked Annapolis' arborist Jan van Zutphen to remove trees two months ago.
Photos
Two large poplar trees fell on a home at 140 Monticello Ave. in the Murray Hill neighborhood ripping up the sidewalk Friday night—after the city's arborist deemed the trees sound.
Next door neighbors Phil and Noelle Richmond woke up when their house on Monticello Avenue shook.
"I didn't realize how bad it was. I thought maybe we lost some limbs," Phil Richmond said. "Then, I went outside with a flashlight and saw that the trees were down."
No one was injured, but homeowner Bill Bryant said his female tenant was very rattled by the whole situation.
Bryant was frustrated by the situation because he asked the city to remove those very trees weeks ago.
"About 10 to 12 weeks ago I went down to the city and met with the arborist, and asked him to come up and take a look at my tree because it was leaning towards my house," Bryant said.
Jan van Zutphen, the city's arborist, reportedly came out and inspected the trees. Bryant said Zutphen declared the trees sound.
"He said I could not trim those branches that were leaning towards my house. The two that are in my house right now," Bryant said. "I told him you're probably going to hear from me again because those trees are a danger."
The poplar trees are technically the city's property because they grew on part of the city's easement on Monticello Avenue.
City spokeswoman Rhonda Wardlaw said, "The department feels that if the arborist had found anything wrong with the exterior portion of the tree he would have made comment.
"By deeming them safe, the exterior portion of the tree is what is he was investigating. If there was an interior weakness, the arborist would not have been able to determine that ... Because of the circumstances, an investigation will now take place regarding the arborist’s evaluation deeming the tree safe."
Phil Richmond said he remembered Bryant pleading with the arborist to please take down the trees.
"The owner of the building and I have talked for a long time about getting rid of these trees because they are long past their effective lifespan," Phil Richmond said. "Well, not only did he [Jan van Zutphen] refuse to do anything because he said the trees were sound, but he refused to allow Bill to do anything on his own."
He said the city's solution was to come back and re-pave the sidewalk in front of the house that had been torn up by the two trees' roots.
"That sidewalk out there was literally put in 10 days ago," Phil Richmond said.
As for the home's tenant, Phil Richmond took her to the Westin Hotel in downtown Annapolis.
"She didn't have any place to go. They wouldn't let her go back in the house, and she had the two dogs," Phil Richmond said. "We put together a grab bag of clothing, toothbrush, toothpaste and gave it to her, and took her down to the Westin. That's what a neighbor would do."
Read more about storm damage around Annapolis:
Woman Unharmed After Tree Crashes Into Her Bedroom
What do you think about the situation? Tell me in the comments.
brian holland
5:05 pm on Saturday, June 30, 2012
The city needs to step up and take care of this property owners issues. They apparently dropped the proverbial ball here and compensation for damages and stress is due.
Megan McGinn-Meals
9:13 pm on Saturday, June 30, 2012
We lost a major limb on a tree in our backyard after a minor storm. Concerned about the tree's health, we had a certified arborist come out. He deemed the tree unhealthy and infested with a parasite. We then had the city come out, in following procedure, and the arborist was not available but his manager was. He agreed with our arborist's assessment but we did not have the money at the time to take the tree down. Once we did, we had to have the city back out. Jan came to the house and said he could neither confirm or deny the diagnosis and would not authorize the tree's removal. I pray that what happened to the understandably frustrated, owner and tenant in this article does not happen to us. Something needs to change with this process and SOON. Just unreal.
Jim Lemyre
12:46 pm on Monday, July 2, 2012
I bet if the city arborist inspects the sidewalk side of the tree's root system he may find that the roots were cut to install the new sidewalk. Too often this is the case with mature trees failing in weather events. If this is the case the homeowner may be repsonsible for damages to the city trees depending on the ordinances in place. And then sometimes mother nature just knocks on the door and ***t happens. Just because the homeowner thought the trees warranted removal doesn't mean that they did. The defects that the homeowner thought warranted removal of the trees may be totally unrelated on where the trees failed (at the roots, below grade).
Philip Richmond
4:17 pm on Monday, July 2, 2012
The city "aborist" pronounced the trunks of these trees as being sound and the trunk was never the issue in the first place. The issue was the ancient and poor root structure that supported the trunk of the tree and, frankly, a blithering idiot could have looked and seen that there was a problem with the roots of these trees, and a very dangerous problem at that! These trees were a poor selection for the easment area in the first place and the "arborist" and the city now have to live with their arrogant and incorrect decission that will now have cost literally tens of thousand of dollars for remediation of an incident that did not need to happen. And, it is a minor miracle that the resident was not killed because of this unfortunate judgment. Kudos for the clean up effort by BGE and the private contractor that removed the mess. The city showed up, took a few pictures and largely vanished after that leaving the work to the utility and homeowner. They did show up this morning to begin work on the broken water main that the downed trees caused and we appreciate that effort.
Phil Richmond
Carsten
2:35 pm on Friday, July 6, 2012
The failure of these poplars should be no surprise to anyone b/c they could have failed at any time. Note the 24-inch curb profile that prohibited any roots from radiating out onto the street side of the tree. And so we have 2 huge trees with only 50% of a root system trying to balance these towering poplars. Compounding the problem is the compacted soils that theses trees were likely planting in. Building development projects as way back as the 1920's+ as well as now all result in a significant level of compaction of soils that prohibit any of the 2nd or 3rd order roots from exploring depths greater than 24-30-inches. The tornado that struck Queens NY in Sept 2010 resulted in scores of downed trees but revealed a root system prohibited from exploring soils no deeper that 24-inches.
And as of this writing the City of New York and the agencies with jurisdiction over new building permits ALLOW MillionTree installations to occur in soils severely compacted by the build operation- duplicating the same problem over and over. I'd say that urban forest managers have not learned very much about the consequences when installing new trees in compacted soils. And I do hope that the insurance firm here does not see this as an act of God, when it clearly wasn't.
Don M
6:21 pm on Saturday, April 20, 2013
Roots can't live under asphalt. There were no roots on the street side, and therefore zero support. Any aborist whoud understand that roots grow close the surface so they can get oxygen, and no roots could grow under the street