The Pacific Northwest is a great place to live, on a world wide scale I can’t think of a better place, especially if you like big trees! I love big trees!
When the winds get strong there is added stress to our trees because they can’t run inside and wait it out. Trees have to” weather” the storms, stand there and take it right in the face. The trees out in the forests depend on these winds to get a free hair cut, weak and loose branches are dislodged and fall to the ground, foliage flies every where. This storm residue is also food for the forests as it breaks down due to soil biology, it becomes tree food. This cycle doesn’t always work when we have our house in the middle of it all. The trees around houses need to be maintained, climbed and thinned before the strong winds and this work should be supervised by a Certified Arborist, it matters what branches get removed. Trees also need the missing food source replaced with organic tree food, when you clean up that mess your removing tree food.
Big trees use their branches to dampen the wind, absorb and disperse energy to protect the tree from catastrophic failure. The trees have a structure that has to be maintained during thinning to keep the trees’ wind system working properly.
After a storm when you go out to look at the mess on the ground, look up first…look for “widow makers” or broken branches about to fall. Pick your path carefully and stay out from under the trees until you get them looked over in the daylight.