The great cycle of forest-trimming

I got home from lunch and a couple of errands yesterday, and what should await me but a bunch of Asplundh trucks in front of our house, trimming back branches. Making a lot of noise. Great.

I remember well the last time they were on our block, I wrote about it in this post. So now we can see they are running in about 5 year cycles here, at least in our mature, forested neighborhood. Their deployment was no doubt occasioned by the couple of outages we've had this year, though I honestly can't say if our neighborhood is worse than any other around here.

One thing that does appear to be the case, at least anecdotally is that Duke Power is being proactive and mindful about managing the risk associated with overhanging trees. Hopefully it has done enough, unlike PG&E, the Northern California utility that was forced to file for bankruptcy last month because of claims arising from all the fires in that region -- many of which have been put down to its failure to keep its power lines safe.

Of course, the weather (and climate?) has been kinder to North Carolina in the last decade or so than it has to Northern California. We haven't had a drought, so our trees are healthy, whereas NoCal's have been weakened by drought. The story is more complicated than that, to be sure, but I can't speculate further right now, because it's time to pack up and get ready for first tennis (coming for you, Z), then work.