“Training and procedures are being developed to be compatible with the Incident Command System developed by the Forest Service for mobilizing personnel to fight wildfires,” says Hartel. “Working within State emergency management programs, qualified arborists on strike teams will be available to provide assistance following disasters that affect urban trees.”

Put to the Test in Tulsa

On December 10, 2007, a massive ice storm hit eastcentral Oklahoma, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses. The sounds of crashing trees and snapping limbs reverberated throughout the neighborhoods of Oklahoma City and Tulsa. People were advised to stay in their homes to avoid harm from falling limbs.

At the request of Mark Bays, Oklahoma U&CF coordinator, and Oklahoma State Forester John Burwell, Hartel and Revell headed out to Tulsa in mid-January 2008 to assess the damage before sending out a team of arborists.

“I went out thinking there probably wasn’t that much of a problem,” says Hartel. “I couldn’t have imagined how bad it was. There were tens of thousands of trees down or damaged. We concentrated on the urbanized areas of Bixby, Tulsa, Nichols Hills, and Edmond where assistance had been requested.”

Working with Oklahoma Forestry Services, Hartel and Revell revised the assessment and data collection protocol for ice storm damage and took teams out to the Tulsa area the first of February. Over the next month, strike teams provided detailed risk assessments and debris estimates to help communities apply to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) under a pilot program that provided funding for debris removal prior to cleanup rather than after.

Four UFST arborists worked for a week on Mohawk Park in Tulsa. At 2,806 acres, Mohawk Park is one of the largest municipal parks in the United States. In one day alone, crews assessed over 500 trees along trails and heavily used areas in the park, resulting in recommendations for 217 tree removals, 254 tree prunings to remove broken and hanging limbs, and restoration pruning for 75 trees.

Because they had taken a recent, predisaster inventory of trees in most of the city parks, Tulsa Parks and Recreation was able to demonstrate to the FEMA debris management team that debris estimates could be easily calculated from existing data. “I refer to this as the ‘Tulsa Model,’ where a city has a recent and accurate management inventory that can be used for reference after a disaster,” says Hartel. “UFST arborists helped the City of Tulsa by completing the inventory in the remaining parks, including Mohawk. The data we recorded—location, genus, diameter, and disaster related assessments— provided enough information for Tulsa Parks to make recommendations for removal and restoration. The same system could be easily applied to street trees.” For Tulsa, this information was also the basis for the calculating debris contracts with FEMA.

Strike Team Network Spreads

In July 2008, additional UFST arborists and12 team leaders completed a training held in Providence Forge, VA. For now, the emphasis is on training certified arborists who are State forestry agency employees, but trainers are also receiving requests from municipal arborists. Hartel and Kuehler help develop the trainings and act as interim leaders of teams, but what started with a group of arborists after Katrina is quickly gaining support from the State Foresters and spreading to other regions. At the Virginia training, five representatives from the Forest Service Northeastern Area attended with the intent of beginning a similar program in their region.

“Eventually we hope to have a whole network of disaster response arborists available to work on strike teams wherever urban trees are affected,” says Hartel. “The goal of the UFST program is to reduce risk in communities following a disaster, and to protect viable trees that can be managed to reestablish urban forests and the environmental services they provide.” —ZH

For more information:
Dudley Hartel at 706–559–4236 or
dhartel@fs.fed.us

 

 

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