THUNDER BAY — A tree that's been a concern for some time for some residents of a Current River neighbourhood will no longer pose either a nuisance or a potential hazard.
After an incident Monday afternoon that saw a large limb fall to the ground, almost striking a pedestrian, the City of Thunder Bay made arrangements to have the tree removed from the boulevard on Adelaide Street.
"We have been asking the city to cut this tree down for years. It's very old, a 75-year-old cottonwood, and has been creaking with all the high winds we have been having," local resident Scott McLeod told Newswatch.
McLeod said he and a neighbour have had to remove fallen branches every year, but what happened Monday showed why it became imperative for the city to take action.
"My mother and I were eating supper at her house here, and a lady was walking by. I saw her look up at that tree, and then she just started bolting, and all of a sudden I saw the tree fall."
When he went outside to talk to her, he said, she told him she'd heard a noise and immediately understood what was about to happen.
"She said 'I heard the crack and I just ran because I realized the tree was falling.' "
McLeod said "It missed her probably by about 15 feet, but if she hadn't run, it would have landed right on top of her."
After he called the city services dispatch number, a crew showed up to remove the fallen limb from the sidewalk and street.
Cory Halvorsen, manager of parks and open spaces for the city, said Tuesday his staff have determined it's now time to take down the entire tree.
He acknowledged the city has received calls about it in the past.
"Our forestry group includes multiple certified arborists who come out and do an assessment based on input from residents. Based on their professional knowledge, I will say we get a lot of calls that don't warrant action. Just because a tree is dropping branches, it doesn't mean the tree needs to come down."
Halvorsen said that in this instance, the tree has been marked for removal.
"We don't want large limbs to fail. We would want to be catching those ahead of time. But we have tens of thousands of trees, and there's only so much information we can get without climbing the entire tree. So it's a balancing act of how much effort we're putting into inspection versus doing so."
He added that "it's absolutely the right thing to do" for any resident to call the 24-hour city services dispatch line (807-625-2195) if they have concerns about the condition of a tree.
