An arborist tells WFAA that most fallen trees he saw Tuesday were healthy but overgrown.
DENTON COUNTY, Texas — Wind gusts exceeding 80 mph Tuesday split countless trees in Denton County, covering lawns with limbs and leaves.
First responders spent hours clearing debris from residential streets and major roads on both sides of Lake Lewisville. High water also closed roads near Argyle.
The damage is not as severe as the destruction left by Saturday’s tornadoes but will create inconveniences for homeowners.
“I’ll be talking with insurance for a good part of the day,” said Mikel DeJongh, standing next to a tree that fell on his roof. “I would’ve enjoyed having the tree a little longer for the summertime for shade and that type of thing, but it appears it had different thoughts.”
Tyler Skeen, a consulting arborist for Urban Forest Systems, said most of the trees that fell Tuesday were alive and healthy.
“This is why it is so important to do proper tree maintenance and management,” Skeen told WFAA. “These trees get too heavy if they haven’t been pruned and they start failing under their own weight, and then they fail due to the lever action caused by the wind and the leaves.”
Skeen added that temperature fluctuations cause tree cells to expand or contract, meaning recent weather patterns have weakened the wood. Heavy rain also weighs down leaves, further straining branches.
“The trees are about as heavy as they can be right now,” he said.
He recommended pruning healthy trees in the winter.
Skeen said he’d visited between 50 and 100 sites before 12:30 p.m. Tuesday. He said, anecdotally, he’d not seen many trees fall on top of homes or businesses.
“The bulk of the work that’s going to have to be performed is cleaning up these hangers we see and the limbs on the ground,” he said.