Today, another falling tree incident happened. As I was driving to my parents’ for dinner, coming around a turn, I came upon a fallen tree, all the way across the road. Not slam-on-the-breaks quick but still a fast stop. I thought it odd since a car had been a good ways ahead of me and some cars had just gone passed me the other way. There were maybe 5 cars stopped on the other side of it, but I was the first on my side.
I put on my blinkers as I came up to it and parked, leaving some room to allow swinging it past. It wasn’t a huge tree, maybe six inches diameter, so I figured it could be dragged and spun sideways. I got out of the car and approached. The woman in the first car on the other side got out and approached, saying something like “It just fell. Do you think we can move it?”. I said something like “We’ll give it a try”. Men from the next two cars behind her got out and approached shortly after.
I grabbed some of the smaller branches on the “top” end of it and tried to pull, but it was quite heavy and nothing-doing. I went to the trunk area and lifted / pulled on it. Just then the woman and men had gotten to the tree and started pushing / pulling elsewhere, and it quickly swung. So quick that the trunk part ended up on my foot and for a moment I worried of getting stuck under it. But I was able to quickly slide out, get a better position, and then pull some more.
It moved quickly, though it was definitely quite heavy. We got it off the road and the one guy on the “top” end made sure the branches were fully off. We then quickly headed back to our cars. By then, a good dozen cars were behind the woman and a handful behind me. A single car pulled around and passed everybody on her side. I let it pass, and waited a moment, fearing everybody behind would be chomping at the bit to get going and would start trying to pass us as we headed for our cars. They didn’t though. That wouldn’t really work anyway with both sides.
I ran across, got in my car, and quickly got going forward, but slowly, to allow the other tree-movers to get in their cars as I passed. And then I was off, with a line of cars behind me. They eventually went their own ways and I got to my parents’.
It was interesting that we got out, didn’t really say much at all, just moved the tree, then got back in our cars and went. Nobody seemed angry or trying to bully their way past the parked cars. Probably helped that it was drizzling, wet, and gray, and people seem to be calmer in such weather, usually.