One of the big killers here in NYC during the storm was trees. In my nabe there are many, many trees and shrubs torn from the ground.
My husband is chairman of the Prospect Park CommCom and has been getting reports of many, many downed trees. All over the internet there are pictures of ancient trees with roots bigger than mini-vans ripped from the earth by the winds. According to hubby, it is the more healthy trees that are more likely to be ripped up by storm winds because they are more sturdy and unbending with a much larger canopy to catch the wind.
My question is: can’t these trees be re-planted? If not, why not? It seems such a shame to lose a magnificent 100 year old oak.
After the Great Storm of 1987, there were a lot of downed trees - some of those that had just tipped over with fairly intact root balls were rescued - crown reduced, tipped back upright and in some cases, anchored in place with guy ropes or spikes driven through the root ball into the surrounding earth.
The problem is going to be that, most of the time, you don’t have a tipped-over tree with all its roots intact. You’re going to have a tipped-over tree with some portion of the very large roots intact, a much smaller amount of the small-to-medium roots intact, and very few of the tiny root hairs intact. Since the root hairs are where all the water and nutrient absorbtion happen, the tree is pretty significantly damaged, and even if you put it back in the ground (not trivial with a big tree) the tree is pretty likely to die quickly anyway.
As mangetout said, it’s possible to survive, if a whole bunch of dirt comes up with the roots, then much of the smaller hairs might be intact, and if you cut off a bunch of branches and leaves (so the tree needs less water), there might be enough roots left for the tree to survive. But that’s not the typical case.
To add to what Quercus said, not only are the feeder roots (root hairs) responsible for nutrient uptake but that’s where cell division responsible for all root elongation takes place; those cells at the feeder root tips.
The main axis of the roots increase in diameter as the tree grows, but any and all elongation occurs at the tips. Feeder roots become old (eventually become conductive tissues) and need to be replaced. The elongation process is what produces new ones.
Propping them up, cutting the crown (so the smaller roots can meet the required/reduced load) and anchoring them is not as good as having a fully rooted and healthy tree.
It’s propping up another danger.
In some cases, it might be okay. In populated areas? No.
And then we’ve also got Broomstick, Floater (hey, logs float OK?), Jackmanii (more of a shrub), the lone cashew, and Mangetout (OK, that’s a real stretch). The whole vegetable kingdom is here…
Even scavenging the trees for lumber may not be an option. Like Floater said, when big trees come down in a storm, the trunks often suffer severe damage despite staying in one piece, effectively preventing conversion into useful lumber. With the unprecedently bad storms that have swept Northern Europe in the past couple of summers, landowners here have learned that they have tonnes of grade C firewood where once stood a high-euro sea of first-class lumber. I think trees in the Eastern U.S. might fare better, as they are not as tall and thin as the Nordic conifers, and they have a much wider, stronger crown ostensibly cushioning the blow.
The aftermath of this storm was years of trains and lorries transporting timber to paper mills all over Sweden just because it was unsuitable as lumber. Here are some photos of what it looked like afterwards. I especially like this one.
Your husband could ask cost estimates from tree surgeons.
Is it possible to tip the trees back, and just let the living part of the tree stand? Many really old threes I know are three parts dead, and the trunk is short there. But the one quarter that is still alive is thriving.
At the other end of the city, we went for a walk through Astoria Park. Quite a few large trees upended. Oddly, all at the southeast corner of the park. We went throughout the park and found no other old growth had fallen.
Tragic, and yet I cannot imagine the city diverting resources to try to upright and secure old growth. They have to prioritize and the use of heavy equipment in the coming days/ weeks/ months should be directed towards lower Manhattan and Breezy Point. ( IMHO of course ).
Strolling through my neighborhood after Hurricane Ike, I noticed that many of the downed trees (or limbs) were not healthy. Those 3/4 dead old trees are just waiting for a strong wind. Or a coating of ice. Then, over they go! From my observation, I would say that old, hollow trees are* not* good at weathering storms. (Houston lost more trees in the drought of 2011.)
But my neighborhood is far inland–we just had wind. The same storm briefly submerged most of Galveston. Due to the seawall & grade raising, results were not as destructive & deadly as the 1900 Storm. But most of the century old live oaks died from Ike’s bath in salt water. Since they mostly remained standing, the lumber could be salvaged…
