Residents Feared Tree Would Fall Before the Hurricane

Carl Price, a resident of West End Avenue, said Sunday he was surprised to see a massive, leaning oak tree across Woodland Avenue from his home still standing after Hurricane Irene ripped through Haddonfield.

He wasn't surprised for long.

The nearly 60-foot tree came crashing down shortly before noon Sunday, taking nearby power and utility lines with it. It barricaded West End Avenue for the better part of Sunday afternoon, a massive monument to the power of the deadly storm which tore up the eastern seaboard over the weekend.

Residents like Price said they were thankful no one was hurt and no private property was damaged, but he wondered why it had to come to this.

"This tree has been hazardous for a long time," said Price, 66, an attorney. "It's been leaning on the wire," he said, pointing to electric and utility wires pinned under the brawny trunk of the fallen tree. A live electrical wire sparked nearby on the ground, cordoned off by caution tape.

Ralph Sitley said he was eying the tree as well. It leaned ominously for years in front of his West End Avenue home, pushing up the sidewalk.

"The utility wires were holding it up," Sitley said Sunday, standing behind the caution tape in front of his home. "Not to many weeks ago, I had the head of the shade tree commission out here. He said 'That tree won't go out for 23 years.'"

Sitley said his response to the official is unprintable.

"They checked it and said everything's fine," Barber Sitley, his wife, said sarcastically.

Bill Poliese, the borough shade tree commission chairman, did not return calls for comment. Borough Administrator Sharon McCullough said the West End Avenue tree was not on a list of 300 critically endangered trees. All of those trees have already been taken down, she said. There are more than 9,000 borough-owed trees in the 2.5-square-mile boundary of Haddonfield. 

Mayor Tish Colombi, who was on West End Avenue and 15 other sites where trees fell Sunday, took the events in stride.

"Inconvient, but we haven't had people who've been injured," Colombi said. She also noted there had been very little property damage.

"I'm just happy no one was driving by," said Gene Mariano, another West End Avenue neighbor.