There's a giant storm system that's diagonal-ing across from Texas all the way through Wisconsin. The first wave passed through earlier this afternoon, and the second is on its way...

Already had two phone calls for giant tree limbs down. They weren't dead limbs--- they were very well-leaved and healthy-looking, but the wind was pretty fierce and must have stressed some hidden weaknesses in the wood.

It was pretty funny. The neighbor to one house called me and said, "Hey, there's a limb down next door to my parents." I paid him to chainsaw it up and stack it next to the street for the local brush guy to pick up in the morning.

About 15 minutes later, I got a call from another place. "There's a giant limb down." "I'll be right over." I went over, and sure enough--! I was really fortunate it didn't smash a hole through the roof, because it was (a) a huge limb, (b) that fell a great distance, and (c) from a tree right next to the house. I said, "I just came from a place that had a downed branch! Let me call my guy--!" and it turned out, my guy was already standing right there! Turns out, the tenant's neighbor and the guy's neighbor both play juvie football, and my guy had been shuttling his kid over to his friend's house. So his chainsaw was still in his vehicle, and he got that all stacked up, too.

It's so helpful living so close to the rentals. :) It felt really great to be responsive and get it resolved so quickly. It's also very nice when the grapevine kicks in and alerts you to problems before your tenants do!

There's more storms coming, so everyone, be safe, keep an eye out for shed limbs, and watch out where you choose to park. :)

As the former owner of a tree service business I can give some advice to possibly reduce this type of thing.

1.Trees need to be thinned occasionally. Big old maples, as an example, often have dense crowns with large branches and large leaves. This gives wind a big surface to push against. Also the angle of the branch to the trunk is important. If it's too small or too large it causes higher stresses in strong winds and the branches are more likely to break.

2. Trees with dead branches and/or damaged or insect eaten trunks often fail.

3. If the wind is high enough or the tree poorly rooted or the ground too wet trees can go over. It happens all the time.

Check any reliable book on pruning and tree care and you can verify this.

To reduce the problems, follow recommendations in good books regarding pruning and tree care.

@Richard, thanks for the great checklist!

My part of Texas is very scrubby and mesquite-y, but we do get two kinds of trees of significant size: oaks and pecans. The pecans shed dead wood like crazy! I had a bunch of dead branches come down in my own yard, but if I ever wanted to thin them, I'd need to rent a cherry-picker so we could work 50, 60+ feet up in the air...

I remembered hiring a guy to do just that-- he owed my husband money, so he offered to do it for the cost of the hydraulic crane rental!-- when we first moved to our current house. He got stuck in the yard, dug great gouges into the lawn with the tires, and ended up not cutting anything at all. :P

Whew, Deanna, you really lucked out in a super serendipitous way and hope that you and others in the area will be safe during the storm.