Wind storm leaves a few trees on their back

By Gillian Slade on April 24, 2018.

gslade@medicinehatnews.com  @MHNGillianSlade

It huffed and puffed and blew some trees down.

Saturday’s wind storm resulted in at least four large trees being toppled, said Dave Genio, city superintendent of parks. At least two of those are spruce. There were also branches that came down from other trees, and staff were involved in cleanup and a process of assessing damage in general on Monday morning.

Environment Canada issued a wind warning for Medicine Hat with 90 to 95 km/h reported and gusts up to 100 km/h.

A spruce tree in a small park at the corner of Valleyview Drive and First Street SW, near Chinook Drive, simply snapped off at the base but does not appear to have caused damage to any other trees or nearby property.

There were repercussions from the wind for the electrical department, too.

“Electric was affected by the winds; we had a pole break, plastic in the lines and multiple tree issues,” Jeff Sandford, acting manager of electric distribution for the city, said in an email. “We were extremely busy with calls all over the service area, but all work was able to be completed without any substantial outages or disruption to a majority of customers. Some single customers were affected by tree issues with their individual services.”

There was much less damage Saturday compared to damage in October last year when heavy snow accumulation on spruce trees contributed to some simply pulling out of the ground, said Genio. Spruce are vulnerable because of shallow, spreading roots. The coniferous trees are also thickly coated in foliage acting like wind sails.

In October, hundreds of calls were made to tree companies to address trees that had ripped out of the ground and in some cases caused damage to property.

If anyone is aware of trees that are down from Saturday’s wind storm they are asked to call parks and recreation to report 403-529-8333, said Genio.

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