What is OB Ficus Tree Condition, Context, and Failure Assessment Study?

By Wayne Tyson

This is in response to the Rag post about the large tree branch that fell in an OB children’s park.

I started a tree survey and management program in 1970 when I was in charge of Balboa and Mission Bay parks. When I got kicked upstairs it was cancelled. It seems real management is “just too much work.” I don’t know what is being done in this regard now, fifty-five years later. I do know that God and Nature (or any other handy scapegoat) are commonly applied, almost nationwide; used to paper over the facts of human-related tree failures rather than treat tree failures as crime scenes– than just cleaning up the mess and moving on. To repeat the same mistakes later– and forever? (“Near misses deserve just as much respect as patient harm events, we usually perform a root cause analysis, which in this case would include city budgeting, etc.…)

A large number of factors are involved in tree failures, but folks are used to pat answers, so that’s what they get fed.

I’m not out to get public employees (I’ve been there and done that), but I do want them to learn from failures.  As Cicero is said to have once said, “To err is human, but to stumble twice on the same stone is a proverbial disgrace.” If a tree manager gets tired of having budget requests denied and stops making them, she or he is assuming a responsibility that is not, in the final instance, his or hers alone. Trees are expensive to manage, but then paying multi-million dollar judgments or settlements ain’t cheap either. One way or another, it’s the taxpayers who are penalized.

This tree (Ficus sp. [nitida?]–having one of the strongest root systems, but they can and do uproot) appears to have been “laced,” a widely acknowledged poor practice. (The theory seems to be that it allows wind to blow through the canopy, thus reducing resistance and preventing windfalls. In this case, it appears that the openings may have contributed to a Venturi-effect of a bit more rapid and turbulent flow through the tree, causing torsional force that appears to twist long, narrow branches off.)

It appears that the tree may contain many branches similar to the subject one. One large primary scaffold branch appears to be quite long, increasing the force applied at the base.

Note the long, “heavy” primary scaffold branch on the left (Ebers) side.

It would be interesting to see of just what the assessment procedure consists.