Hurricane season officially runs from June through November, and the storms that actually hurt trees around here arrive at both ends of the calendar: tropical systems in late summer and early fall, then nor'easters from November through March. Southeastern Massachusetts gets hit by both, and the trees that fail are almost never a surprise in hindsight.
Here is the walk to do before the season, not during it.
Start at the house and work outward
Stand at each corner of the house and look up. Anything overhanging the roof is the first priority, because that is where a failure costs the most. Note limbs that touch the roof or the gutters, limbs that hang directly over the roof line, and anything dead up there.
Then do the same for the driveway, the deck, and wherever the cars sit. Then the shed, the fence, and the neighbour's house if a tree of yours reaches it.
The five things worth writing down
1. Dead limbs. Grey, no bark, no leaves in July. They come down eventually. In a storm they come down at speed. Deadwood removal costs little relative to everything else.
2. Weak forks. Where a trunk splits into two roughly equal stems, look at the join. If the bark is pushed up into a raised seam rather than forming a rounded U, that is included bark — the two stems are not properly joined, and that is the classic point of failure on red maples and oaks in wind.
3. New leans. Compare against a photo from a couple of years ago if you have one. Look at the ground on the uphill side of the lean for cracks or a raised lip of soil, which means the root plate is moving.
4. Root damage you caused. Trenching, a new patio, a driveway extension, or heavy equipment parked over the root zone in the past few years all cut or compact roots. The tree may look fine for years and then go over in a storm because a third of its anchorage is gone.
5. Anything that changed near a big tree. A neighbour taking down the trees on the other side of the line exposes yours to wind it has never had to handle. Same for a new clearing on a lot behind you.
The white pine conversation
If you have mature white pines within reach of the house, they deserve their own look — around here they are the single most common storm failure, for reasons worth knowing in detail. Long horizontal limbs and top-heavy crowded rows are the shapes to be suspicious of.
Gutters and grade, while you are out there
Not tree work, but the same storm: clear the gutters, make sure downspouts discharge well away from the foundation, and check that the ground slopes away from the house. Saturated soil around a foundation is also saturated soil around root plates.
What to do with the list
Some of it is a Saturday with a pole saw. Some of it is not — anything that requires being off the ground, anything near a wire, anything over the roof. Book that work in the spring or early summer when tree companies have normal availability, rather than in the queue behind everyone else's emergency.
We will walk the property with you and go through the list. Free, same day when you call or text early in the day.