Shallow roots may be culprit in uprooted trees

For someone with a huge oak tree resting on her roof and deck, Debbie Williams was relatively unfazed.

"We're counting our blessings," the Medinah resident said Friday. "No one was hurt, so we were very fortunate."

The Williams family was among the thousands of suburbanites coping with tree damage from Thursday's marathon thunderstorms.

The devastation was so great that in Villa Park, where more than 1,500 trees came down, officials asked nonresidents to avoid the village altogether.

In West Dundee, winds snapped tree limbs and toppled giant oaks and maples that had stood in the Dundee Township West Cemetery for more than a century.

And while making yet another call in Arlington Heights, certified arborist Tom Tyler called the day one of the busiest of his career.

"There's a lot of running around in all directions," said Tyler, who was assessing the future of a pear tree that had split in half.

The calls for service ranged from "trees on homes to trees on cars to lightning-struck trees to trees that haven't been cared for giving away," said Tyler, who works for Wheeling-based The Care of Trees.

As for the pear tree, "it had a weak structure anyway," Tyler said. "We'll have to remove the split and see what we can do to save the rest."

One reason so many local trees fell victim to the winds could be the soil conditions, Morton Arboretum Director of Collections and Grounds Kris Bachtell surmised.

"The roots of trees in our area with the clay soil are shallower," said Bachtell, adding that 90 percent of a tree's roots are in the top 18 inches of soil.

Saturated soil combined with shallow roots and heavy winds can be a death knell for trees.

"It's only in well-drained, sandy soils you get a deep root system," Bachtell said.

The good news is that if you have weak branches and stems, "storms do a lot of pruning," he said.

Staff at the arboretum in Lisle advise homeowners to check their trees for branches that may be damaged but haven't fallen. For trees with limbs ripped off by high winds that leave a jagged edge, the arboretum recommends making a clean cut with a saw to protect from diseases or pests.

However, arboretum experts cautioned that in many cases, it's safer to hire a tree service to handle the job.

Many residents were calling in the professionals Friday, said Jeff Kramer, co-owner of Kramer Tree Specialists in West Chicago.

"Storm damage is very tricky, there's a lot of elements with power lines and wood under stress," Kramer said.

"Considering how big the storm was I'm surprised there weren't more trees on houses."