James C. Liu's Weblog

Wednesday November 10, 2004

The Sky Fell

California gets a little rain and what happens? Well one could say that the sky fell yesterday. Actually, a couple of tree branches came down yesterday outside our office and landed on top of some vehicles out in the parking lot. I'm sure glad none of the cars were mine and that no one got hurt, but it did put one driver into a predicament when he came out and needed to get to the airport to catch a flight. The driver of the rental vehicle (a silver Chevy Cavalier) had good spirits and with a little bit of help from colleagues, we cleared the trees off his car, which wasn't in too bad a shape. Hopefully, the rental company won't hassle him too much.

The driver of the blue minivan didn't suffer too much of a loss either, although she couldn't get into her car or back out since some thick limbs were caught between the two cars and stuck partially in her wheel well.

Apparently, a witness says that he was waiting for the Sun company shuttle Tuesday evening during the twilight hours. He heard a loud crack and looked up. A branch high above on an old, tall species of Eucalyptus tree I think (Tasmanian Blue Gum perhaps?) had cracked off and was barely hanging on by some small fibres and bark. He says he called the Security office to have them tend to this urgently since a crash of several hundred pounds of wood posed a serious threat. But he couldn't stick around to point this out to security because his shuttled arrived and had to leave.

No one apparently tended to the problem and in the morning, two unlucky employees arrived at our MPK24 building, parked as they would normally do and proceeded inside. Unbeknownst to them, the branches above their vehicles were precariously held by the slimest of margins and could come crashing down at any moment. Well, the branches didn't fall until shortly after lunch, when two large limbs ended up mostly on top of the silver Chevy compact. From the pattern, it looks like the branch on top broke first, and put its weight all on the branch below. The weight was too much for the lower limb to support and so it gave way and the two heavy limbs came crashing down. Luckily, the thinnest strips of bark must have held onto the falling limbs long enough so instead of a clean snap, the limbs pivoted downward, then fell more closely to the trunk where they hit the ground leaves-side first, bounced up a bit and rolled over the cars. Direct impact to the vehicles was avoided.

I had heard of Eucalyptus trees "shedding" limbs once in a while, but this was my first actual experience, . A quick inspection of the break points doesn't seem to show any signs of malformations from water, rot or insect damage. But a little of excitement on a quiet afternoon. November 10, 2004 06:15 PM PST Permalink