A very wet and rainy springtime for me on my forestry farm and how I handle it daily.
Yesterday May 30th, 2025, another rainy day on the farm. I have had another day or heavy rain, and my farm is extremely hilly in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains of Southern Ohio close the Ohio River and WV and KY. Anyway, it rained all week long but yesterday during a slight break in the rain. I caught up on the weed whacking. But this morning a large White Oak tree on a hillside of my forest gave way and came down across the state route blocking it and hitting a power line knocking out the power with a loud thud I heard in the house. I spent all morning and into early afternoon cutting up and removing the tree from the road and out of the creek along the road as not to cause a backup flooding. So, now I am in the house resting and drying off because it just kept raining as I worked. By the time the Power Company showed up I had the treetop that hit the power line and was laying across the road and in the creek beside the road dragged up the state route and placed beside my driveway. The Power company guys were funny and dumb founded trying to find the top that had hit the power lines, they said to me "where did it go". I told them to look 100 yards up the state route and in my driveway for the top where I dragged it too already to cut up later. That I did not want it laying in the creek backing up the creek and flooding the roadway. To just go get my power restored and if they had to make love to the top that I would charge $100 each and I would not take pics for an extra $100 each. They laughed and went and restored my power. They actually thanked me for removing the tree top saving them work in the rain.
This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »
How come trees are allowed to grow where they can fall on power lines? Or was this a low voltage (240 V) local distribution line? Where I live (Norway) the power company cuts trees back from high voltage lines and has even trimmed the trees I have along the front of my garden because they had grown up to meet the insulated local distribution cables that are strung on telegraph poles along the edge of the garden.
@ninalanyon You cannot compare your postage stamp country to one that is as vast as the US. Okay! And America does not suffer European laws thank God.
With the size of the US Larger than all of Europe. The line trimming crews take years to come along.
Mind you this tree fell across a State Route first from a steep hillside in a very rural area. No city with neat little picket fences and gardens. The power line was on the opposite side of the state route than where the tree grew. Forests where trees grow to maximin size reach quite a distance once they fall and are not standing. Quit thinking about villages and towns or cities.
@WillaKissing Practically the whole of Norway counts as rural and our average population density (14.5/km2) is under half that of the US (37.2/km2). Most of the country is forest or mountains and has been electrified for a very long time yet we don't have trees falling on power lines.
@ninalanyon Willa evidently loves to tease non-Americans about the sizes of their countries, but why anyone imagines a law designed to protect electricity supplies to homes and businesses is wrong, I can't imagine. However, my pen-friend in central Norway once told me of an unexpected, local weather and power-line problem, in her region.
I knew the main transmission-lines, as this was, in Norway are all in cleared lanes where they pass through forests - as in Britain, too.
In that year in central Norway though, a very dry Autumn was suddenly ended by a sharp frost with freezing fog. This so iced the power-lines near Brønnøysund they broke from the weight, landing on tinder-dry grass and heather. Arcing to Earth before the supply was cut, they started a fire! Luckily it was contained quite quickly, but from my friend's report this appeared something no-one could have expected.
Most urban and suburban low-voltage supplies in Britain are underground but rural homes and farms are commonly supplied by overheads. These of course can be brought down by storms, but I don't know the position of protecting them from trees. Obviously they should be protected, obviously no-one should do the work without requisite knowledge and authority - we don't want the lines broken or anyone electrocuted - but I don't know if the power companies or the landowners are responsible for cutting them back.
@ArishMell The dry heather and undergrowth is a serious hazard in Norway and my impression is that it's getting worse. Where I live we have almost permanent yellow warnings for forest fires in the weather forecast.
As for comparing countries by size, well that's a category error. The proper comparison is surely local population density. The numbers I quoted are also misleading because both countries have areas almost devoid of people and areas filled with them. For instance the horse shoe shaped area at the top of Oslo fjord, metropolita Oslo, has 1.5 million people, more than a quarter of the total population. But the density drops dramatically once you are 20 km inland.
@WillaKissing I appreciate the USA is half a continent with many sparsely-populated areas, but is it hard to carry out maintenance even near towns and villages?
I should add I do respect you for clearing the fallen tree out of the way.
@ArishMell Thank you, yes very waste and the Power companies are privately owned not municipally and that makes it seriously difficult running a few crews to keep up with the forested portions of the US and all the hilly and mountainous terrain as well.
These are the best pictures I have of my farm showing the hills and steep ridges, so the power company has to run the power lines alone the roadways and being nearly all forested it is difficult to keep up with and to maintain growth. My farm is a Forestry farm, and the power company does not have the finances to buy the easement and clear the forest on either side of the road either. So, it is money terrain and finances combined as well.
@WillaKissing Climate too - a characteristic of continents is severe ranges of weather even at temperate latitudes.
I live in Southern England on about the same latitude as Newfoundland, but our Winters are considerably milder. At least we don't live in central Siberia, which has the highest annual temperature ranges in the world.
