By Wendell Phillips “Phil” Berwick
The St Louis region is no stranger to the sound of crackling storms and broken trees. And the carpenter prophet from Nazareth, who said toward the end of this age, there will be an increase in earthquakes in various places, was from the Mid-East. He would have spoken of an increase in tornadoes and lightning strikes if he preached around here. There are three ingredients for a thunderstorm: moisture, instability and lift. Missouri has had the ‘moisture’; it’s had its share of ‘INSTABILITY’, so now then, it’s time for a ‘LIFT’.
Since I feel a thunder clap of TREEOLOGY under my bark, let me touch on lightning bolts and trees. In the case of a tree that has received a lightning strike, tree surgery assists the tree in sealing over the wound, and that is, if other than blown out bark, the tree survives the blast. There is a waiting period of a couple weeks before I can decide if the tree could be safely kept. A lightning protection system is the best investment that anyone can make for a large irreplaceable tree. In 2005 my company, Living Tree Care, was hired to install lightning protection systems in twelve of Forest Park’s 150-year-old “Heritage Oaks”. Although I cannot offer that it will also intercept the strike from blowing through a home’s electric components and grid, if the tree is close to the house… it will.
For lightning to happen, water droplets turn to ice particles, bouncing crazily in a cloud. Positive charges, (protons) rise to the top of the cloud, as the negative charges (electrons) fall below the cloud. At the same time an equal electric charge, but of opposite polarity, follows that ‘thunder cloud’, traveling just below the ground. The trees send out FEELERS, that you’d be able to see if you were another tree. And where FEELERS (like faith) and LIGHTNING (like hope) meet…. KABOOM!!! And by the way, there are 2,000 thunderstorms occurring worldwide, producing over 100 lightning strikes a second. That’s millions of lightning bolts a day. Something to consider, in the storms of life… without letting ourselves get too fried. Let’s be like trees and send our FEELERS up together St Louis and beyond. We may as well get a charge out of life! But DO call me to safeguard your tree
Wendell Phillips ‘Phil’ Berwick, Certified ISA Arborist / Living Tree Care /Founder of Living Tree International /314-568-8367