From the Archives • December 1999

From the Lower Left Corner:

Almost a Shut-out

by Victoria Stoppiello

It was a howler the other night, high winds roaring and sighing in the tall trees around my friends' house in Nehalem. I awoke many times, wondering if any trees would fall -- then reminding myself it hasn't rained much yet this season. Soils are relatively dry, so toppling trees are unlikely, but high wind does sometimes snap off the tops of trees standing in unprotected locations, especially those no longer enmeshed with their fellows in thick stands. Later in the fall and winter, when there's lots of rain, is when a windstorm like the other night's would result in flooding, mud slides, and uprooted trees.

The view around the Nehalem house is more open than years ago. There used to be a row of relatively young firs and spruces, 30 feet tall, along the street below the house. The PUD came through and not only topped them, but completely removed every one. Now the view up the Nehalem Valley is more expansive from the house, for better or worse.

There are lots of things we do to trees in the name of our own comfort and safety. I say comfort because people often fear trees, fear that they will fall, crush a house, car or person. In fact, this seldom happens. It's a little like the statistics foe plane travel: in term of passenger miles, there are statistically few fatalities, but when the fatalities occur, they are sudden, instantaneous, and shocking. So we regard plane travel as risky, and likewise we fear living near big trees in winter storms.

The odds, of course, are all in our favor. The match between humans and trees is almost a shut out. The logger who is killed by a tree that splits as it falls, sending projectiles in all directions, the wind tossed giant that drops onto the suburban roof, killing the occupant as she sleeps, the old snag that suddudy gives way on the state park hiking trail -- those are a few examples of the trees' revenge. I say revenge because the trees are losing the battle, and the few human lives lost are like a few grains of sand removed from a beach littered with billions of trees taken for our benefit.

Many trees don't even serve a useful death. Some are cut down so a builder has a simpler task working on a clearcut lot. Some are taken down because the homeowner is tired of raking leaves. Others are removed because the household says "they're too close to the house" and no further explanation is necessary. Trees are removed to improve the view, even though the view gained by perspective and focus from its framing by trees.

Other trees are removed in public places "because they might fall on somebody," or they shade the roadway and delay the melting of winter ice. Seldom is there an apparent examination of the tree's health, evaluation of the direction of a potential fall, or consideration of the statistcal probability of such an event at a moment when someone is nearby.

At the Arcadia Beach wayside, south of Cannon Beach, two very large old conifers were cut right down to the ground apparently with this rationale. A tree had fallen and killed a child in a state park somewhere and that was reason enough to chainsaw these two giants. Even the logs were removed, so that no sense of history or perpetuation of the forest through nursery logs would remain. Scrutiny of the rings showed no sign of disease. A more likely story is that the highway department, which is in charge of the waysides and is no respecter of trees, saw an opportunity for some quick bucks from logging two big old tees. After all, they're the same folks who use what I refer to as the "grim reaper" to trim back limbs, small trees and brush along what's supposed to be scenic Highway 101. That equipment leaves behind a display of tortured, ripped and shredded limbs, a sight to send an orchardist reeling.

So while I lay awake during the night, listening to wind whirring through big trees in Nehalem, I think these thoughts. I think of trees falling, examine the facts of the matter, and realize that in fact I've only heard a tree fall once, long ago, in a forest, at a distance. It was a unique experience, like hearing a cougar's cry for the first time -- something you rememer with gratification and respect, but may not want to repeat.

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