Embedded Files
WRECKS by Ash Tree
12 found so far. There must be many, many more, but they don't make the news if no one is hurt.
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1. https://www.wmur.com/article/tree-falls-on-car-driving-in-hudson/23091960
Here is the car from the video on the above page. A large dead ash fell on this car on 9/12/2018 in Hudson, New Hampshire. Fortunately, thanks to split second timing of the fall and the distance of the tree from the road, the driver was not injured. Had the main trunk hit her, she probably would have died.
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72 Year old Liberta McLuckie was very lucky. She escaped with very minor injuries. The image clipped from the video is an unmistakable dead ash. If you enlarge it, you can see the borer holes in the bark where the adult beetles emerged. This happened on Fellsburg road just East of Webster, PA on January 23rd, 2018.
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3. http://www.thejeffersonchronicle.com/police-blotter-shed-fire-dwi-tree-topples-vehicle/
Fairly certain this is an ash. The woman was very fortunate to be uninjured. This happened 6/11/18 near Jefferson, NJ. Google Earth shows several large dead ash trees on Berkshire Valley Road between Taylor Road and Solar Road.
I put a pin on the KMZ overlay file near one of them.
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This is a classic borer killed dead ash. I could tell from the photos I clipped from the video on the news site. It was not hard to find the hairpin right turn on Google Earth on Peters Mountain Road in Halifax, PA. The tree fell on Sherise Mills on 7/25/2018. Street view photos from July 2014 show the tree already dead. This dangerous tree was allowed to stand for years until it fell on a moving car. She was lucky she was not killed like so many above were.
This photo shows the tree that fell on Sherise on the right and another dead ash behind the power line pole across the road between the curve signs. If you pan around with Google street view, you can see other dead ash on this curve. It is a death trap and there is probably no one even bothering to see that the dead trees are removed so this doesn't happen again.
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5. https://www.wane.com/news/local-news/tree-falls-on-womans-car/1035688558
Ashly Dafforn had an ash tree fall on her moving car on West State Boulevard near Ollandale Drive in Fort Wayne Indiana on 1/23/2018. She was not hurt. Google Maps street view shows this area is still lined with dead ash trees as of May 2018.
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6. On March 10, 2018 my wife totaled our 2007 Caravan on a dead ash tree that had fallen into the road just past the crest of a hill where she couldn't see it until she was right on it. I was very fortunate that none of the three people in the car were killed. Google Earth shows that the tree on Dailey Road in Cass County, MI had been dead since before 2015 and it had never been removed from its dangerous position beside the road. After the crash there was no steering and the vehicle left the roadway. Fortunately there were no trees where that happened. The impact of the tree destroyed the steering linkage, drove the engine and transmission up against the firewall, snapping both engine and transmission mounts, and deployed the air bag.
The stretch of Dailey road near Brookside school is one of the most dangerous in Cass County MI because of the large, still standing dead ash trees on both sides of the road and the hill that obscures the roadway in that area from Southbound travelers.
Nov. 5th, 2018 update - some time this week the dead ash trees along this stretch of road were removed. I think my filing suit over the accident above and this website may have contributed to that happening. I feel better knowing that Southwestern Michigan College students who use this road heavily are now a bit safer, but there are still many dangerous trees on it in other locations.
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This is the first wreck I have been notified of since the Lansing State Journal article above came out (within 3 hours). Bonnie Ott had the missing limb from the tree in the photo (below right) fall right on her truck while she was driving past on October 20, 2018, doing $17,380 worth of damage in a split second. If such a small limb can do this much damage, imagine what one of the many thousands of larger trees could do!
The ash borer trails are clearly visible on the branch that went through Bonnie's windshield. She was very fortunate to be uninjured. I had no trouble finding the tree on Google Maps street view just East of Carland Road on M-21 from Bonnie's photo above. The back of the Carland Road sign and the church sign made pinpointing it easy.
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Two ash tree wrecks in Cass County, MI on the same day, Sept. 3, 2018.
The first tree hit a motorcycle at 3:48 PM. The second one hit a car 16 miles due North at 10:30 PM.
Motorcyle wreck
The snapped off ash on the left hit the motorcycle. I located the exact accident site by knocking on doors and then locating bits of wreckage where the lady said it happened. If you enlarge the right photo, you can see a yellow blinker bulb and numerous clear lens and fairing pieces.
Right across the street you can see a large dead ash and a smaller, snapped off one in front of a house (left photo). Just down the road to the North a hundred yards are numerous dead ash, standing and fallen, on both sides of the road.
I would hate to be riding a motorcycle through this area. 57 year old Ronnie Lee Haas and his 53 year old wife are lucky to be alive after the dead ash fell on them on M-40 near just North of Teasdale Lake road on Sept. 3rd, 2018.
Car wreck
9. https://fox17online.com/2018/09/04/driver-hospitalized-after-tree-falls-on-car/
These links tell of a Cass County, Michigan wreck where a tree fell on 56 year old James Hokauson's car at 10:30 PM. The poor guy didn't have a chance of avoiding the tree that late when he couldn't see it falling. There were no pictures of the wreck or the tree, but they gave the location. The first article said it was not clear what caused the tree to fall. Well, it was very clear to me when I drove to the site and found the remains of the tree.
The first photo shows the classic snapping in half of the trunk. The second photo, if you click on it and enlarge it, clearly shows the ash borer larvae trails that destroy the cambium under the bark, cutting off sap flow and killing the tree. Lack of sap dries the tree out quickly, making it brittle and prone to snapping off like this. This tree, which was well back off the right of way, was about 24" in diameter. It is a miracle that anyone survived.
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This is a classic dead Ash. The ladders on top of this truck undoubtedly kept the driver from being injured or killed. This happened on 11/6/2018 in Bellbrook, Ohio.
This street view photo of the accident site at wilmington pike and east centerville station road was taken in August 2015. The site was easy to locate because of the guardrail, the intersection sign and the evergreens in the yard. The tree that fell on the truck is already almost dead at that time. You can see the bare branches on it at the top of the photo. The tree is obviously leaning toward the road and destined to fall onto it at some time in the future. I predict it will fall on 11/6/2018 when a white pickup truck is right underneath it if the landowner doesn't recognize it is a danger and cut it down. If you use street view to look at this stretch of road to the rear, you can see dead ash all along it. There will be more of them falling into the road. I hope no one gets hurt.
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This incident shows that even quite small dead ash can be very dangerous. This one was less than 6" in diameter, but it broke Diana Bess' arm when it came through her windshield on Airport Road in Murray, Kentucky on June 26th, 2018 around 9 PM.
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This accident would not have been prevented by cutting the ash tree, but it would have been less serious. The car went off the road and hit a dead ash, which then broke and fell onto the car, crushing it. Two women were seriously injured. You can see the ash borer trails in the wood if you enlarge the right photo. This happened on October 22, 2018 on I-43 near Hampton at the edge of the golf course in Milwaukee, WI. This was the same day an ash fell on Michelle Martin's car and killed her just South of Milwaukee.
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