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Uploaded: Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 8:07 PM

Big oak topples at Lucie Stern Community Center
Rain-saturated soil gives way, ending the life of a longtime member of oak grove

Posted by Tree guy, a resident of the Crescent Park neighborhood, on Feb 17, 2009 at 10:15 pm

Looks like our City Arborist has some work to do.

Kids could die from this kind of event.

What is it going to take to inspect these HERITAGE Trees?

How about using that $32,000,000 to fund this project?

Posted by Resident, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Feb 18, 2009 at 9:04 am

This was obviously a city owned tree. The city should look after its own trees. Since Palo Alto loves being a city with trees, then the responsibility for having trees in a suburban city must be with the city that owns them. Trees do not live for ever and it makes sense that if they are not removed at the end of their lives, then they will fall and do potential harm to persons and property. Many of the city owned trees are 50 years old and plans must be made to replace them.

Posted by Don G., a resident of the Community Center neighborhood, on Feb 18, 2009 at 11:33 am

We're fortunate to live in a city WITH so many trees. Trees will come down for many reasons. 34 years ago a similar oak trees fell in Rinconada park and also on Embarcadero underpass near Alma (today there still remains a large bent top railing as a reminder of it's large size and weight. I don't recall, but that tree could have crushed a student walking to Paly. Other tree failures like in Mitchell park where a branch fell on some kid's party. The city, I believe, does it's best to take care of the many city-owned trees but cannot predict which ones are likely to fail in severe weather or unseen rot.

Before we start whacking down the large trees or put up railings to prevent people from getting too close, we need to think about what we're willing to accept living in a city where we enjoy the shade of many public trees.

Posted by Kate, a resident of the Duveneck/St. Francis neighborhood, on Feb 18, 2009 at 4:12 pm

That tree that came down on Embarcadero at the underepass did so during a violent 'cyclone' in February,1983. Embarcdero was closed, and crews had to saw a path through the tree.

Trees blew down in one direction - west to east - and took down most of the trees between Embarcadero and Churchill on El Camino. The eastside lane was blocked. \Trees with their shallow roots went down all along Louis and Barbara Drive ad in private yards. The golf course was a disaster area as were our parks. The Stanford campus was hard hit. It had nothing to do with tree maintenance. This was term a mini-cyclone.

Posted by Goodby Oak Tree, a resident of the Community Center neighborhood, on Feb 21, 2009 at 11:52 am

Trees are like people they have finite lives. To quote the Weekly article: "The oak was one of several large trees in front of the center." Since there are several large trees, the space will be filled in in a couple of years and you probably won't notice that this one has gone.