Storm Damage
Jun. 10th, 2026 01:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithSevere storms down trees, knock out power to thousands across Minnesota
A line of severe thunderstorms raced across Minnesota overnight, bringing wind gusts of more than 80 mph, downing trees and knocking out power to thousands of homes and businesses.
As climate change progresses, violent storms occur more often and do more damage. This is only going to keep getting worse.
If you are able-bodied, I recommend getting a chainsaw and learning how to use it. For less-able folks, a hand saw, or even a chainsaw that you could loan out, may make sense. Reason being, few people want to do blue-collar work nowadays, so any tree services in a given area tend to run months behind on work. When a storm hits, they get a huge surge in demand, but there is no surge capacity to absorb the demand. That means there's nobody to clean up the fallen limbs and trees promptly. Ordinary residents need to pick up the slack to clear debris from their yards, the streets, for less-able neighbors, etc. to restore road access and remove tree parts from places they don't belong. If you have a broken roof, punctured septic tank, or smashed car then by all means try to get the attention of overworked professionals. Otherwise you are probably on your own. Look out for each other. Form neighborhood storm response teams if possible. Here are some resources...
Cleanup Resources
It's important to clean up storm debris as fast as feasible. Here are some links about doing that.
8 Ways to Operate a Chainsaw
11 Tips for Clearing Storm Debris Faster With a Root Grapple
This is a specialized power tool attachment for a skid steer, compact utility loader, or similar light construction equipment. You can probably find similar attachments for a medium-size tractor. Not only are these useful for folks who have a lot of land, they are well worth considering as part of an organizational or municipal motor pool.
CHAINSAW TRAINING PROGRAM
Felling, Limbing and Bucking Trees
Here's what to wear as you clean up storm debris
Make sure to stock personal protective equipment in your emergency supplies. You may not be able to buy it immediately after a storm.
How to Cleanup Your Outdoor Space After Severe Weather
How to Cut Down a Tree: 6 Steps
How to Cut a Tree on the Ground with a Chainsaw
Storm Debris Cleanup for People Who Can’t Do It Themselves: Who to Call
Strategies for Quick & Effective Storm Damage Cleanup
Team Rubicon
Team Rubicon is serving communities all over the country in 2025, from a glacial flood in Alaska to the devastation of Hurricane Helene in the Southeast, from Long Term Recovery operations in Kentucky to wildfire response in California. Once again, Greyshirts step up to serve and drive another year of meaningful impact for communities in need.
Reuse Resources
Fallen wood is not waste, unless it is contaminated in some way (e.g. puncturing a septic tank). Ideally, it should be salvaged for firewood, chipped into mulch, or set aside for wildlife use. Nice, large pieces may instead be salvaged for woodworking, construction, or similar crafts. It is helpful to form neighborhood or municipal teams for this effort.
8 WAYS TO REPURPOSE OR RECYCLE A FALLEN OR REMOVED TREE
9 Tree Stump Ideas to Elevate Your Yard
20 Uses for Fall Leaves Around the Yard and Home
Many of these will work for storm-fallen leaves at other times of year. You can rake up fresh leaves after a storm. A few days later, leaves will drop off fallen branches or trees; after the wood is hauled off, you can also rake up these leaves to use.
20 Uses For Wood Chip In The Garden & Homestead
39 Creative DIY Garden Projects with Logs and Branches
Beyond Firewood: 10 Eco-Friendly Options For Fallen Tree
Brush Piles
Create Homemade Tree Blocks: Natural STEM Toy
These are just pieces of branch cut into round logs, half-round logs, forks, etc. Along with tree cookies, they are some of the best loose parts for creative play. You can buy them, but commercial sets are ruinously expensive; homemade ones only cost time.
Cutting firewood from felled trees safely and easily (bucking)
The dead good: Survey Booklet
Dead Standing Trees are Beneficial
Many types of wildlife rely on large standing snags. If a tree has broken but part is still standing, consider leaving it for wildlife. Check for safety; if the remaining part is tall enough to pose a hazard, you can have it trimmed shorter. The taller and wider a snag, the more valuable it is, but anything over about 1 foot wide or 6 feet tall is useful.
Fallen Logs: A Lot of Rot
Many kinds of wildlife use fallen logs. The bigger the better, but it's okay to cut a tree trunk into sections that are easier to move. Anything with a diameter of about 1 foot and length of at least 3 feet is useful. (You can also build a log pile from smaller, firewood-sized pieces.) Fallen logs make a great core for a shady wildlife garden. Just add some ferns or other woodland plants; the log will hold extra moisture for them. A water dish or miniature pond is great but not required.
Garden Design Ideas Using Dead Trees and Branches
Homemade Woodchip Mulch
How to Make Tree Cookies
These are slices of wood intended as toys, ranging in diameter from about an inch to over a foot. Along with tree blocks, they are some of the best loose parts for creative play.
How to Reuse Wood from a Fallen or Cut Down Tree
How to Turn the Dead Tree in Your Yard Into a Wooden Heirloom
How to Use a Wood or Limb Chipper: Use & Safety Tips
This piece of portable power equipment is incredibly useful for turning woody debris into useful mulch.
A Practical Guide to Making Firewood from a Fallen Tree in Your Garden
SNAGS, COARSE WOODY DEBRIS, AND WILDLIFE
Stumpery Basics: New Life for an Old Style
What to Do With a Felled Tree : 36 Steps (with Pictures)
When life gives a downed tree, make lumber
Your Guide to Creating Hugelkultur Kitchen Garden Beds
Hugelkulture buries and composts everything from small branches to whole trees. There is no better time for a big hugelkultur project than after a bad storm has littered your area with woody debris that people want to get rid of. Offer to haul it away and you'll have more free wood than you know what to do with. You can also make hugelkultur pits instead of raised beds.
A line of severe thunderstorms raced across Minnesota overnight, bringing wind gusts of more than 80 mph, downing trees and knocking out power to thousands of homes and businesses.
As climate change progresses, violent storms occur more often and do more damage. This is only going to keep getting worse.
If you are able-bodied, I recommend getting a chainsaw and learning how to use it. For less-able folks, a hand saw, or even a chainsaw that you could loan out, may make sense. Reason being, few people want to do blue-collar work nowadays, so any tree services in a given area tend to run months behind on work. When a storm hits, they get a huge surge in demand, but there is no surge capacity to absorb the demand. That means there's nobody to clean up the fallen limbs and trees promptly. Ordinary residents need to pick up the slack to clear debris from their yards, the streets, for less-able neighbors, etc. to restore road access and remove tree parts from places they don't belong. If you have a broken roof, punctured septic tank, or smashed car then by all means try to get the attention of overworked professionals. Otherwise you are probably on your own. Look out for each other. Form neighborhood storm response teams if possible. Here are some resources...
Cleanup Resources
It's important to clean up storm debris as fast as feasible. Here are some links about doing that.
8 Ways to Operate a Chainsaw
11 Tips for Clearing Storm Debris Faster With a Root Grapple
This is a specialized power tool attachment for a skid steer, compact utility loader, or similar light construction equipment. You can probably find similar attachments for a medium-size tractor. Not only are these useful for folks who have a lot of land, they are well worth considering as part of an organizational or municipal motor pool.
CHAINSAW TRAINING PROGRAM
Felling, Limbing and Bucking Trees
Here's what to wear as you clean up storm debris
Make sure to stock personal protective equipment in your emergency supplies. You may not be able to buy it immediately after a storm.
How to Cleanup Your Outdoor Space After Severe Weather
How to Cut Down a Tree: 6 Steps
How to Cut a Tree on the Ground with a Chainsaw
Storm Debris Cleanup for People Who Can’t Do It Themselves: Who to Call
Strategies for Quick & Effective Storm Damage Cleanup
Team Rubicon
Team Rubicon is serving communities all over the country in 2025, from a glacial flood in Alaska to the devastation of Hurricane Helene in the Southeast, from Long Term Recovery operations in Kentucky to wildfire response in California. Once again, Greyshirts step up to serve and drive another year of meaningful impact for communities in need.
Reuse Resources
Fallen wood is not waste, unless it is contaminated in some way (e.g. puncturing a septic tank). Ideally, it should be salvaged for firewood, chipped into mulch, or set aside for wildlife use. Nice, large pieces may instead be salvaged for woodworking, construction, or similar crafts. It is helpful to form neighborhood or municipal teams for this effort.
8 WAYS TO REPURPOSE OR RECYCLE A FALLEN OR REMOVED TREE
9 Tree Stump Ideas to Elevate Your Yard
20 Uses for Fall Leaves Around the Yard and Home
Many of these will work for storm-fallen leaves at other times of year. You can rake up fresh leaves after a storm. A few days later, leaves will drop off fallen branches or trees; after the wood is hauled off, you can also rake up these leaves to use.
20 Uses For Wood Chip In The Garden & Homestead
39 Creative DIY Garden Projects with Logs and Branches
Beyond Firewood: 10 Eco-Friendly Options For Fallen Tree
Brush Piles
Create Homemade Tree Blocks: Natural STEM Toy
These are just pieces of branch cut into round logs, half-round logs, forks, etc. Along with tree cookies, they are some of the best loose parts for creative play. You can buy them, but commercial sets are ruinously expensive; homemade ones only cost time.
Cutting firewood from felled trees safely and easily (bucking)
The dead good: Survey Booklet
Dead Standing Trees are Beneficial
Many types of wildlife rely on large standing snags. If a tree has broken but part is still standing, consider leaving it for wildlife. Check for safety; if the remaining part is tall enough to pose a hazard, you can have it trimmed shorter. The taller and wider a snag, the more valuable it is, but anything over about 1 foot wide or 6 feet tall is useful.
Fallen Logs: A Lot of Rot
Many kinds of wildlife use fallen logs. The bigger the better, but it's okay to cut a tree trunk into sections that are easier to move. Anything with a diameter of about 1 foot and length of at least 3 feet is useful. (You can also build a log pile from smaller, firewood-sized pieces.) Fallen logs make a great core for a shady wildlife garden. Just add some ferns or other woodland plants; the log will hold extra moisture for them. A water dish or miniature pond is great but not required.
Garden Design Ideas Using Dead Trees and Branches
Homemade Woodchip Mulch
How to Make Tree Cookies
These are slices of wood intended as toys, ranging in diameter from about an inch to over a foot. Along with tree blocks, they are some of the best loose parts for creative play.
How to Reuse Wood from a Fallen or Cut Down Tree
How to Turn the Dead Tree in Your Yard Into a Wooden Heirloom
How to Use a Wood or Limb Chipper: Use & Safety Tips
This piece of portable power equipment is incredibly useful for turning woody debris into useful mulch.
A Practical Guide to Making Firewood from a Fallen Tree in Your Garden
SNAGS, COARSE WOODY DEBRIS, AND WILDLIFE
Stumpery Basics: New Life for an Old Style
What to Do With a Felled Tree : 36 Steps (with Pictures)
When life gives a downed tree, make lumber
Your Guide to Creating Hugelkultur Kitchen Garden Beds
Hugelkulture buries and composts everything from small branches to whole trees. There is no better time for a big hugelkultur project than after a bad storm has littered your area with woody debris that people want to get rid of. Offer to haul it away and you'll have more free wood than you know what to do with. You can also make hugelkultur pits instead of raised beds.
(no subject)
Date: 2026-06-11 04:49 am (UTC)I don't trust myself to learn a chainsaw at this stage of my life, but I have worked wonders with a hatchet and a handsaw and it's good to remind myself and others that I have that skill set.
Thoughts
Date: 2026-06-11 06:05 am (UTC)*bow, flourish* Happy to be of service.
>>I don't trust myself to learn a chainsaw at this stage of my life,<<
Fair enough.
>> but I have worked wonders with a hatchet and a handsaw and it's good to remind myself and others that I have that skill set.<<
Somebody's gotta break down the smaller stuff after the chainsaws cut the big branches into sections. Large and small loppers help too.
Excellent points
Date: 2026-06-11 06:35 am (UTC)Re: Excellent points
Date: 2026-06-11 07:14 am (UTC)This way, you could head up a team of cleaners and let folks pick what tools they feel comfortable using. Figure out priority of work that needs done and just go down the list.
(no subject)
Date: 2026-06-11 05:19 pm (UTC)You're welcome!
Date: 2026-06-11 06:10 pm (UTC)