After Rain Falls, Trees Follow

After all the rain, a powerful Santa Ana wind event blew in.  The soft, moist soil allowed the wind to push trees until they fell. 

Two reasons they were cutting down several trees here--the trees were leaning and slapping the power lines across the street, but the unsupported slope is also ready to fail and block the road.  Electrical power was out for a couple of hours on Wednesday while they cut away the slapping branches.  Today they finished cutting down the trees, a couple of volunteer Eucalyptus mixed in with three pines of unknown species (But not Canary Island--that one I know.)  Five large shallow-rooted trees within a few feet of each other on an unsupported slope near power lines.  Don't do that.  

This branch reminded me of shoe tossing. 

This one is on county easement.  I wonder if they will remove it.  

Down the road a bit, as gusts of wind rocked this Schinus molle, I stood and watched the cracks in the soil widen and narrow, widen and narrow, as the wind pushed the tree.  Will it fall in this wind event?  The soil was heaving pretty good. 

The red arrow points to the tree in question.

This Eucalyptus had already fallen when we walked to the park this morning.  We did not go into the park in case more were about to fall.

Good thing:  another Euc fell an hour or two later.  In the neighborhood beyond the park, another tall tree (indicated by red arrow) is leaning.  Would you be worried if your house was underneath it?  Looking at this photo I was mostly marveling at how green the grass looked.  Update: the red arrow tree fell, or was felled.

Another tree about 15' away from this one fell last Friday.   This google street view shows the two trees that fell:

The park people had just yesterday finished cutting up and removing the Friday victim.  More work today!
Update:  actually this is two fallen trees.  Look to the lower left of the big mass of roots; another root system is visible.

Two dead Eucs have not yet fallen. 

These dead Sequoias were engulfed with Bougainvillea a few weeks ago.  Perhaps it was the weight of wet Bougainvillea that snapped off the branches and left mostly bare trunks.  The Sequoias have been dead a couple of years.  The county may now cite the homeowner to remove them. 

Beloved saw this on his way to work, and took a phone-tograph for me.  Luckily the Euc missed the power lines:

 Here's what it looked like before it fell:

Update:  the Euc to the left of the red arrow tree was also removed.
The wind is howling once again tonight.  We'll see tomorrow if the rocking Schinus survives or not.  Update:  deep cracks in the soil near the Schinus.  It appears a Eucalyptus below it is now holding the Schinus up.