Woman pinned as tree branch crashes on Wicked van

[Newcastle George]

More deadly than drop bears.

George

[Dot]

I have never gone into a national park as I love my animals being with me and I have no clue which trees are the droppers Just stay away from all the gum trees to be sure I thought Aussie taxes paid for the national parks?? is that a fallacy?

[bagmaker]

wrinkly arm pits???

Can you elaborate? A pic maybe?? - I have never heard such things

Like this? (-no visible armpit accessories)

(from gouldiaes blog)


Thanks,

[Dot]

Are wrinkly armpits akin to hairy ones??

[T1 Terry]

http://www.parksaustralia.gov.au/botani ... -notes.pdf No12, also known as scribbly gums Here is the monster from our front yard

Wrinkly arm pits, scribbly gum.jpg

The wrinkles are quite obvious.
It cost us a grand to get it cut down, money well spent in my books

Not this little black duck.jpg

[bagmaker]

but....
are you saying the branches with the wrinkle ARE safe?
Does the theory work for all gums? (or sort of, good enough??)
After nearly 40 years camping on the Murray, this widowmaker thing still bothers me. On average I reckon 1 person per year dies under a redgum on the Murray, I would be most interested in a theory.

[dream4red]

The ladies in the wicked van, were in a caravan park that is run by NPWS. You would expect that as a business, the NPWS would have been more aware of the tree dangers and be aware of the dangers to their paying customers. It was not a case of the ladies choosing a poor place to park, they would have been allocated the particular site.

Having said that, we stayed last October, at a NPWS caravan park at Jimmys Beach (Near Hawkes Nest NSW). There were many trees that had been marked for removal, but still standing in gale forced winds. One did fall onto a mates van and left a huge hole in the roof. They were devastated with the amount of damage. Another mate went to look at the park last week and the trees with great big red rings painted on them are still standing and threatening to kill some one else. Obviously the dangers have been assessed, but no action has been taken to remove the dangerous trees.

Not a good sign for the NPWS run caravan parks at all, and they do have the ownership/management of many parks in coastal NSW.

[Jim]

Perhaps the NPWS should cut down all their trees?

[Chuck]

[T1 Terry]

but....
are you saying the branches with the wrinkle ARE safe?
Does the theory work for all gums? (or sort of, good enough??)
After nearly 40 years camping on the Murray, this widowmaker thing still bothers me. On average I reckon 1 person per year dies under a redgum on the Murray, I would be most interested in a theory.

As far as I have been told by forestry workers and tree doctors the wrinkly arm pit trees are very safe as far as not dropping limbs etc and ours stayed up in some huge winds. The small stick branches at the top were sometimes near in loops where they had broken but not right through, regrown, broken again, regrown and so on till they got thick enough not to break any more. You can see signs of this if you zoom into the upper section of the partly cut down tree. Just as another funny bit, zoom in at the guy in trees face, then look at the branch.... he has cut it near all the way through and it won't fall, yet it was quite a windy day.
We had tried to rip branches out by tying a rope around the branch by hoisting it up using a tennis ball launcher and fine line, as soon as we latched on to a branch any thicker than your wrist, forget it, it would bend to 90deg but wouldn't break and the poor old white Falcon would end up having it's rear wheels lifted off the ground as the branch sprung back

T1 Terry