Storm cleanup in Bremen, IN: the limbs, the hangers and the mess
Nothing is on the roof, but the yard looks like a war zone. Broken limbs everywhere, a few more dangling up in the canopy, and a tree that lost one whole side. We clear the ground, get the hanging limbs down, and trim the damaged trees so they heal right.
The short answer
Pick up what's on the ground if you want to, but leave anything still hanging in the tree to us. Broken limbs caught up in the canopy, called hangers, can drop without warning days after the storm. We get those down first, then clean up and trim the torn ends back to healthy wood.
Hangers: the part of storm cleanup people miss
After a hard wind, the limbs on the lawn are the obvious problem. The ones to worry about are still up in the tree: a snapped branch hooked over another limb, or a split limb still attached by a strip of bark. They look stable. They aren't. The next breeze, a squirrel, or a kid swinging on the tree can bring one down.
Look up before you walk under a storm-hit tree. If you see broken wood hanging, or leaves on a branch that are wilting while the rest of the tree looks fine, keep people and cars out from under it until it's taken down. From the bucket we can reach those limbs without anyone climbing into a damaged tree.
Fixing the torn ends so the tree heals
A limb that breaks in the wind doesn't break clean. It leaves a jagged stub with torn bark peeling down the trunk. Left alone, those tears let decay into the tree. Part of storm cleanup is going back to each break and cutting it back cleanly, to the next healthy branch or to the collar where the limb meets the trunk, so the tree can seal the wound.
Sometimes a tree loses so much of its canopy, or the split runs so far into the trunk, that trimming won't save it. We'll tell you straight when that's the case, and a tree assessment is the way to get a proper look at a tree you're unsure about.
Clearing the ground
Once nothing is hanging overhead, the ground work goes quickly. Limbs are cut to size and fed through the chipper, the bigger wood is carried out by the loader, and the lawn gets raked so the mower can go back over it. If there's a leaning or uprooted tree in the mix, that's handled on our fallen tree removal page.
What you can safely do yourself
- Pick up small branches you can lift with one hand that are lying loose on the ground.
- Photograph damage to the house, cars or fences before you move anything.
- Stay out from under any tree with broken wood still in it.
- Leave anything near a wire alone, and call the utility about it.
If a tree hit the house, a car or a line, that's more than cleanup. Go to storm damage help for what to do right now.