Real EstateCharleston’s Massive Live Oaks: A Tree, A Storm & A Valuable Lesson

A month or so ago on the night of Tropical Storm Hermine’s arrival, I am doing my nightly routine as if it were any other night. There was a pot roast in the oven, I was washing dishes and the news was playing in the background letting us know that the category 1 storm would now hit Charleston as a Tropical Storm. For the majority of us, Hermine was nothing but a pest.  A mere thunderstorm with some minor flooding, something Charleston residents are far too familiar with. This was nothing like Hurricane Matthew, no evacuations in place, no gas shortages and ultimately nothing to be alarmed over. I am looking out the kitchen window as I finish the dishes. Our beautiful live oak tree is swaying back and forth and is taking quite a beating from the tropical storm strength gusts Hermine is dishing out, but rest assured we’ve taken good care of her – of all of our trees in fact, that line our 4 acres.

I was once a city girl who has now adapted to living in the country. The first thing I learned in doing so is to take care of your land and the land will take care of you. There is nothing more beautiful than sitting on the porch in the morning, coffee in hand and watching the sun shine through the threshold of oak trees. There is also nothing more deadly than sitting on the porch, coffee in hand and seeing those same oak trees start to expose their roots and massive limbs 20 to 30 feet high start to dry out.

Before I became a Realtor I was a Property Manager and a pretty good one according to my tenants. The reason I succeeded in managing properties is because I understand the importance of preventive maintenance. Owning a home and managing a property is one in the same, in that the goal is to have a well kept dwelling while spending the least amount of money. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a common phrase I hear from home owners, landlords and even Property Managers. I am here to tell you as a Property Manager, Realtor, friend and victim that if “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is your philosophy, then you are in big trouble.

Here is an example of how this way of thinking could be devastating. 

Once or twice a year I hire a landscaping service to come out to the property, trim all vulnerable branches and limbs as well as order 10 yards of mulch, soil and sand to protect exposed root systems as necessary. This is a costly expense, and can run up to a couple thousand dollars, but the peace of mind and the “what if” consequences are worth every penny spent. Unfortunately our neighbor, an older man who tends to save his pennies where he can, did not believe in the same preventive maintenance strategy. Maybe he understood the benefits but was unwilling to take on the expense… that is until the night of Hermine.
So on this particular night, when nothing seems out of the ordinary and Tropical Storm Hermine is on her way out of Charleston, I am finishing the dishes and out of nowhere, I hear an enormous crash. I was stunned and horrified by the roar and tremble of the entire house. Without warning, everything began to fall off the walls, glass was shattering, the water was still running from doing dishes and I was trying to remember how my legs worked so I could save myself from whatever was happening. In an instant, a four foot branch penetrated through the kitchen, missing me by two feet. I ran to the front door only to find myself trapped inside with the entire treetop sitting on the front porch. In a final attempt to escape, I run to the back of the house, squeezing through the hallway horrified to see that the back bedroom had already caved in. I was eventually able to make it to the back porch only to find our neighbor’s hardwood oak tree laying on top of our home as if it were a hotdog in a bun. My mind was trying to comprehend that a tree, my neighbor’s tree, was responsible for all the commotion. All I knew is that the house was crumbling and I didn’t know why or where to run for safety.

I had lived through Category 4 hurricanes, I was in Chile, South America during their catastrophic earthquakes, I have seen many scary natural disasters in my life and it wasn’t until a pesky tropical storm put a tree through my house that I feared for my life. It wasn’t wind that caused this, it was rain. It doesn’t take a hurricane, much less a historic level flood, to build a water table under a root system and cause a catastrophic incident. Many storm’s deadliest killers are trees and it is VITAL to understand the importance of maintaining them throughout the year,  You may not be concerned about your home being destroyed by a tree and you may not want to spend the money to have a professional cut down a few branches but I can personally say from my experience, on that day my neighbor learned the value of preventive maintenance because it was the day he saw his tree wreak havoc on the life of someone else.

Note:  Should you have suffered storm damage from Hermine or Hurricane Matthew, let our construction company assist you with your repairs.