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Timber! NY Homeowners Catch the Incredible Moment a Giant Tree Is Uprooted and Topples in Storm

Oct. 31, 2012 11:21am Liz Klimas

While Hurricane Sandy left many scrambling, one set of homeowners in Huntington, New York, were surprisingly calm as they witnessed, in real-time, a giant tree in their Long Island back yard being uprooted and toppled by the strong winds. Perhaps they were just thankful it appeared to be leaning away from their house before it went down.

Either way, homeowner Mathew Weinschreider was quick-thinking enough to grab a camera and record this event.

In the footage, you can see the ground in front of the tree’s trunk, which has a child’s basketball hoop on it, beginning to buckle and bubble as the root system emerges.

Tree Uprooted in Long Island Homeowners Back Yard From Hurricane Sandys Winds Caught on Tape

(Image: YouTube Screenshot)

Check out the footage:

In the video, you can hear one of the spectators inside say “There it goes. Uh oh, uh oh.” Then the tree topples over onto the fence in the opposite direction of Weinschreider inside the house. Another person mentions that the tree barely missed the house on the other side of the fence.

Some of the highest sustained winds during Hurricane Sandy, which battered the East Coast early in the week, reached up to 80 miles per hour.

(H/T: WSOC TV)

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Comments (36)

g56
Posted on October 31, 2012 at 11:32pm
That tree had really shallow roots!

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macpappy
Posted on October 31, 2012 at 8:05pm
Thats pretty impressive, but till you have seen Palm Trees snapped in half, you still have some seeing to do.

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762x51
Posted on October 31, 2012 at 5:37pm
A tree that size in a crowded neighborhood and all it hit was the fence? Even missed the shed and the ladder on the fence, wow.

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OneTermPresident
Posted on October 31, 2012 at 1:33pm
Awful shallow root system for such a large tree.

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- bobbyj1
  Posted on October 31, 2012 at 5:07pm
  Being a landscape contractor, I agree. That was my first reaction. The main roots don’t look freshly severed at all, and there should be considerable root mass sticking out all over with fresh tear marks.
  
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- macpappy
  Posted on October 31, 2012 at 8:00pm
  I too thought that the tree might have been transplanted, I noticed that the grass around it looks like pretty fresh sod. Also the mound looks like a transplant might have taken place there.
  
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- UnknownUser1
  Posted on October 31, 2012 at 9:46pm
  Yeah and it seems like they were waiting for it to happen With the camera aimed in exactly the right spot
  
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- HappyConservative
  Posted on October 31, 2012 at 10:19pm
  Ok same for me. I think it may be bogus.
  
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Bryancpe
Posted on October 31, 2012 at 1:22pm
I am more impressed that these guys were prepared with a generator.

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REAPER242
Posted on October 31, 2012 at 1:04pm
America! It’s time once again for us to take charge and do the job right the first time,Obama said he has 1k penciel pushers on the ground and ready to go to work,really? Our fellow americans don’t need FEMA,they need real help and they need it now! Iurge you to go to,Mercury one.org,the red cross,,or any other org. that you trust and give as much as you can,these people need food,clothes,water,flash lights,and even shelter,we need to fill as many trucks as we can and get them rolling as soon as it’s safe. We are the ones who will be there first with real help,not the Gov. By the time the Gov. shows up we will say get out of our way,we’re doing just fine with out you. They think we don’t know what to do or how to do it,let’s prove them wrong again,lets show them the real american sperit and know how! With charity for all and mallace tourds none.Thank you!

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- Yeah_Buddy
  Posted on October 31, 2012 at 1:22pm
  I bet they didn’t have a gubbermint permit to hang that basketball hoop on that poor tree. Obviously, the weight of the backboard caused the tree to fall!
  
  Seriously, you need to trim large trees in small yards.
  
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- BarbieBabe
  Posted on October 31, 2012 at 2:29pm
  That will probably work every where except New York City
  
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- drphil69
  Posted on October 31, 2012 at 3:40pm
  @Reaper –
  
  Didn’t you hear? Andrea Mitchell said DO NOT DONATE GOODS, JUST CASH!! Apparently she wasn’t happy that Mitt organized a food drive for Sandy victims… how selfish of him!!
  
  And apparently FEMA is causing delays in bringing power back up on Long Island. FEMA has power to determine what gets done first, so it could be weeks or even months before they get power back. After all, the pencil pushers have to get together and decide what needs to be done. Then they have to vote. Then if they don’t have a supermajority, they have to revote… so yes, probably months…
  
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banjarmon
Posted on October 31, 2012 at 1:01pm
Ya don’t see that every day.

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80mesh
Posted on October 31, 2012 at 12:24pm
They call the wind Maria

Away out here they got a name
For rain and wind and fire
The rain is Tess, the fire Joe,
And they call the wind Maria

Maria blows the stars around
And sends the clouds a’flyin’
Maria makes the mountains sound
Like folks were up there dying

Maria
Maria
They call the wind Maria

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- brigott
  Posted on October 31, 2012 at 6:35pm
  The winds’ name is Moriah, not Maria.
  
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- macpappy
  Posted on October 31, 2012 at 8:02pm
  Hell, I’m just gonna call it wind.
  
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JinOH
Posted on October 31, 2012 at 11:58am
In Ohio, we call that firewood.

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- lobster
  Posted on October 31, 2012 at 12:28pm
  All I can see is a beautiful grained lumber to build something really cool. Use natural gas for heat.
  
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- Stoic one
  Posted on October 31, 2012 at 12:32pm
  my thoughts exactly.
  
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theninthplanet
Posted on October 31, 2012 at 11:57am
You didn’t grow that!

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- RedSpotinaBlueState
  Posted on October 31, 2012 at 12:18pm
  Spew alert please!
  
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DZ-015
Posted on October 31, 2012 at 11:49am
This is something that commonly occurs to large trees with shallow root systems which are located in the space between a street gutter and a sidewalk. Wind coming from either direction perpendicular to the street after a soaking storm will push them right over, downing power lines, crushing parked vehicles and hitting homes. Many residents of mature neighborhoods love their old trees, so they choose to live with this hazard.

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- tiki886
  Posted on October 31, 2012 at 12:20pm
  I was surprised at how shallow the root system had grown. Compare that to trees whose stumps need to be dynamited out of the ground.
  
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- SITDOWNANDSHUTUP
  Posted on October 31, 2012 at 12:34pm
  Trees planted in the middle of a lawn generally do not have a deep root system. Why should they? The lawn is constantly watered so all the water they need is near the surface.
  
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TEARS FOR AMERICA
Posted on October 31, 2012 at 11:47am
Whoa, really is amazing the power of wind in the face of a huge, old tree…

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Lee_in_PA
Posted on October 31, 2012 at 11:46am
We had to have a locust tree taken down because it was pulling itself up by the roots when the wind barely blew. I asked the guys how tall it was, then measured the trunk. Using some formula I found to estimate the weight of fresh trees, I calculated the thing was in excess of 4 tons. That is a lot of tree to be falling anywhere.

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- Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
  Posted on October 31, 2012 at 12:03pm
  Indeed, I have seen a small eight foot portion of a eucaliptus tree fall onto a pickup truck, it looked like a U shape in the bed where the chunk landed. The irony is that the next day the neighbor who had the truck smashed went out to cut down the dead tree and felled it onto his wifes car.
  
  Sad to see that old tree in the video going over for good.
  
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FaithfulFriend
Posted on October 31, 2012 at 11:44am
It’s certainly much better footage than Martha MacCallum talking over video of a downed pine tree that’s no older than 20 years at most while saying it was a hundred year old tree.

This tree was struggling as all the shallow broad feeder roots show. It’s nature’s way.

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- tonyloaf
  Posted on October 31, 2012 at 12:50pm
  Actually its kind of the opposite. The tree has never had to struggle as evidenced by the shallow roots. Water has been plentiful near the surface, so the tree has never had to send down deep roots to find water. If this tree had had to suffer through droughts, it would have had a stronger root system and the wind and rain wouldn’t have blown it over so easily. Adversity makes us stronger.
  
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john vincent
Posted on October 31, 2012 at 11:39am
Wow! there could have been a death here had it gone the other way. That is alot of tonnage, and years and years of growth gone in an instant. That was an excellent vid, the earth moving…

Waves roaring, earthquakes, record snowfall, flooding; an awesome display of the God of nature, who has every right to cleanse completely his creation of everything against Him…..yet chooses not to.

This is a very patient God.

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Pouncing Porcupine
Posted on October 31, 2012 at 11:38am
That was cool.

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cyacademy
Posted on October 31, 2012 at 11:37am
Look how shallow those roots are/were. That IS prophetic!

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lbw
Posted on October 31, 2012 at 11:36am
I lived in Houston most of my life and we had that happen alot, didn’t even have to be a hurricane or tropical storm. Trees that have shallow root systems are easily toppled when the ground gets saturated enough. We had one fall during a big rain and take out our back porch, but luckily missed the roof of the interior of the house. I was in the house at the time and I heard it and knew what the sound was but had no idea where it was going to land. During Ike, all the trees fell the same direction because of the spinning of the hurricane. The trees looked like popsicle sticks lain across the street one after another. We had about 8 fall on our street. I’m talking about 50 foot pine trees, oak trees, etc.

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PatriotDadOfSix
Posted on October 31, 2012 at 11:24am
That is a prophetic video! This is what will be happening to OBAMA on Nov 6. I guess you could call it a simile.

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- DZ-015
  Posted on October 31, 2012 at 11:56am
  Your simile made me smile :)
  
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