Grieving for trees
from www.nola.com
Insurance firms sued over tree removal price tag
Amounts offered too small, suit says
By Meghan Gordon
St. Tammany bureau
An estimated 200 St. Tammany Parish residents have turned to state court to demand higher compensation for the clean-up bills and lost property value of trees that Hurricane Katrina toppled in every corner of the north shore.
The class-action petition names Urban M. Craddock Sr. as the lead plaintiff, but Covington lawyer Shawn Reed said she has added dozens of names daily to the lawsuit against 17 insurance companies.
Craddock's insurer offered him $500 to remove the 40 to 50 fallen trees on his 16-acre property north of Pearl River - a sum that fell $59,500 short of the lowest estimate to clean up the mess, Reed said. Craddock also should be due reimbursement for the loss in value from the majestic oaks that were the focal point of his property, she said. "They're saying basically that the trees have no value, and our position is that the trees do have value," Reed said. "They've just totally ignored that in our community we really think that our trees are important property.
"We're here because we love our trees, and that's part of what we love when we're here. But the insurance companies are saying, 'We'll give you $500 for debris removal, but we won't cover the trees.' "
Reed said insurers should have specifically excluded trees from homeowners' policies if they wanted to take the stance they have taken since Katrina.
Craddock, whom Reed said wouldn't comment because of pending depositions, was forced to clear what he could from his driveway to get in and out of his house. Reed said he left the remainder of the huge debris-removal project untouched, because he can't afford the estimates he's received.
Reed would not release a list of clients who hope to be named plaintiffs in the suit. She gave another example of an elderly woman who paid $7,000 to have two trees cleared.
"It's all the same story wherever we go," she said. "People are left with quotes to clean up this stuff."
Defendants named in the Sept. 29 petition include All State, American International Group, Lloyd's of London, CNA, GEICO, Hanover Insurance Co., Hartford Group, Liberty Mutual, Louisiana Farm Bureau, St. Paul Insurance, Traveler's, State Farm, USF&G, Safeco and Farmers Group.
Katrina felled more than merely trees
For foresters, it claimed a source of income
By Meghan Gordon
St. Tammany bureau
The small forest of long-leaf pines that Roy Wood bought in northwestern St. Tammany Parish after returning from World War II represented more than just the start of a young man's financial investment.
As his land holdings grew to 800 wooded acres in St. Tammany and Washington parishes, Wood's forests became a point of pride and an endless hobby. He studied the latest management practices to keep his land a healthy ecosystem, home to two of the dwindling gopher tortoise dens in the state.
Now 81, Wood stood recently among the twisted, shattered, mature trees that were but healthy saplings when he bought the land in 1946. The retired nuclear weapons specialists compared the scene to the outer edges of a multi-megaton blast.
Wood and some 10,000 family foresters in southeastern Louisiana who suffered enormous blows from Hurricane Katrina stand to lose 90 percent or more of the income they could have reaped from logging. Meanwhile, 3 billion board feet of damaged timber lay tangled on the ground, in danger of deteriorating before it can be sold for sharply depleted prices as plywood or pulpwood.
"It's got to be the most destructive force that's hit our country since settlement days," Wood said, adding that he remembers as a boy counting the growth rings of felled trees in Washington Parish. "I could count in excess of 400, so there had never been a storm like this."
Buck Vandersteen, executive director of the Louisiana Forestry Association, said the state's timber industry will likely take a $1 billion hit - one fifth its annual income - from Katrina's immediate damage and the subsequent rush to salvage fallen trees before they're stripped of all their value.
The staggering loss amounts to enough healthy wood to build 300,000 homes - twice Louisiana's total annual harvest, Vandersteen said. About 65 percent of the damage was in Washington Parish, with St. Tammany and Tangipahoa parishes suffering most of the remainder of the damage.
Vandersteen said that although none of the damaged wood has gone to waste, it's quickly approaching that point. First, loggers are attempting to pick up fallen trees that weren't splintered so badly that they can no longer be used as plywood. The remaining wood that's picked up in time will be shredded into pulpwood for paper. Finally, timber that sits too long will have to be used as fuel wood, burned in boilers for energy.
"A lot of it will go to waste," Vandersteen said. "Our goal is to recover 40 percent of it."
Aside from the sheer volume of material awaiting pickup, Vandersteen said the task for loggers screeched to a halt when crews had to abandon all-mechanized cutting for on-the-ground power saws to untangle the clot of fallen trees. He said insurance costs have doubled for the more dangerous working conditions.
"Because the material is all down and it's crosswise and it's such a mess, productivity drops by about half than what it would normally be," he said.
The forestry association has been working with state and federal officials to line up grants and other assistance to help landowners reforest their devastated plots. Vandersteen said the future of timber, the state's largest agricultural crop, depends on starting the long process of replacing the hurricane-ravaged forests.
"What we worry most after this storm is that people's attitudes after this storm is, 'Oh, it is too risky. I'm going to let it grow up into weeds or I'm going to turn it in to a shopping center,' " Vandersteen said. Wood, who lives in Amite, doesn't have another six decades to replant and grow his life's savings. He estimated that his carefully tended land held $800,000 to $1 million worth of timber.
"If I get 10 percent of that, I'd probably be lucky," he said.
Wood heaped some of the blame for his expected loss on state agriculture and forestry officials whom he said haven't responded adequately to the challenge of recovering the quickly deteriorating timber.
"I expect my people in Louisiana to give me some help, and I've seen zilch," Wood said. "The only help I got was from Mississippi. I am in the process of getting it up, but no thanks to anyone in Louisiana."
Meghan Gordon can be reached at meghangordon@hotmail.com.
Insurance firms sued over tree removal price tag
Amounts offered too small, suit says
By Meghan Gordon
St. Tammany bureau
An estimated 200 St. Tammany Parish residents have turned to state court to demand higher compensation for the clean-up bills and lost property value of trees that Hurricane Katrina toppled in every corner of the north shore.
The class-action petition names Urban M. Craddock Sr. as the lead plaintiff, but Covington lawyer Shawn Reed said she has added dozens of names daily to the lawsuit against 17 insurance companies.
Craddock's insurer offered him $500 to remove the 40 to 50 fallen trees on his 16-acre property north of Pearl River - a sum that fell $59,500 short of the lowest estimate to clean up the mess, Reed said. Craddock also should be due reimbursement for the loss in value from the majestic oaks that were the focal point of his property, she said. "They're saying basically that the trees have no value, and our position is that the trees do have value," Reed said. "They've just totally ignored that in our community we really think that our trees are important property.
"We're here because we love our trees, and that's part of what we love when we're here. But the insurance companies are saying, 'We'll give you $500 for debris removal, but we won't cover the trees.' "
Reed said insurers should have specifically excluded trees from homeowners' policies if they wanted to take the stance they have taken since Katrina.
Craddock, whom Reed said wouldn't comment because of pending depositions, was forced to clear what he could from his driveway to get in and out of his house. Reed said he left the remainder of the huge debris-removal project untouched, because he can't afford the estimates he's received.
Reed would not release a list of clients who hope to be named plaintiffs in the suit. She gave another example of an elderly woman who paid $7,000 to have two trees cleared.
"It's all the same story wherever we go," she said. "People are left with quotes to clean up this stuff."
Defendants named in the Sept. 29 petition include All State, American International Group, Lloyd's of London, CNA, GEICO, Hanover Insurance Co., Hartford Group, Liberty Mutual, Louisiana Farm Bureau, St. Paul Insurance, Traveler's, State Farm, USF&G, Safeco and Farmers Group.
Katrina felled more than merely trees
For foresters, it claimed a source of income
By Meghan Gordon
St. Tammany bureau
The small forest of long-leaf pines that Roy Wood bought in northwestern St. Tammany Parish after returning from World War II represented more than just the start of a young man's financial investment.
As his land holdings grew to 800 wooded acres in St. Tammany and Washington parishes, Wood's forests became a point of pride and an endless hobby. He studied the latest management practices to keep his land a healthy ecosystem, home to two of the dwindling gopher tortoise dens in the state.
Now 81, Wood stood recently among the twisted, shattered, mature trees that were but healthy saplings when he bought the land in 1946. The retired nuclear weapons specialists compared the scene to the outer edges of a multi-megaton blast.
Wood and some 10,000 family foresters in southeastern Louisiana who suffered enormous blows from Hurricane Katrina stand to lose 90 percent or more of the income they could have reaped from logging. Meanwhile, 3 billion board feet of damaged timber lay tangled on the ground, in danger of deteriorating before it can be sold for sharply depleted prices as plywood or pulpwood.
"It's got to be the most destructive force that's hit our country since settlement days," Wood said, adding that he remembers as a boy counting the growth rings of felled trees in Washington Parish. "I could count in excess of 400, so there had never been a storm like this."
Buck Vandersteen, executive director of the Louisiana Forestry Association, said the state's timber industry will likely take a $1 billion hit - one fifth its annual income - from Katrina's immediate damage and the subsequent rush to salvage fallen trees before they're stripped of all their value.
The staggering loss amounts to enough healthy wood to build 300,000 homes - twice Louisiana's total annual harvest, Vandersteen said. About 65 percent of the damage was in Washington Parish, with St. Tammany and Tangipahoa parishes suffering most of the remainder of the damage.
Vandersteen said that although none of the damaged wood has gone to waste, it's quickly approaching that point. First, loggers are attempting to pick up fallen trees that weren't splintered so badly that they can no longer be used as plywood. The remaining wood that's picked up in time will be shredded into pulpwood for paper. Finally, timber that sits too long will have to be used as fuel wood, burned in boilers for energy.
"A lot of it will go to waste," Vandersteen said. "Our goal is to recover 40 percent of it."
Aside from the sheer volume of material awaiting pickup, Vandersteen said the task for loggers screeched to a halt when crews had to abandon all-mechanized cutting for on-the-ground power saws to untangle the clot of fallen trees. He said insurance costs have doubled for the more dangerous working conditions.
"Because the material is all down and it's crosswise and it's such a mess, productivity drops by about half than what it would normally be," he said.
The forestry association has been working with state and federal officials to line up grants and other assistance to help landowners reforest their devastated plots. Vandersteen said the future of timber, the state's largest agricultural crop, depends on starting the long process of replacing the hurricane-ravaged forests.
"What we worry most after this storm is that people's attitudes after this storm is, 'Oh, it is too risky. I'm going to let it grow up into weeds or I'm going to turn it in to a shopping center,' " Vandersteen said. Wood, who lives in Amite, doesn't have another six decades to replant and grow his life's savings. He estimated that his carefully tended land held $800,000 to $1 million worth of timber.
"If I get 10 percent of that, I'd probably be lucky," he said.
Wood heaped some of the blame for his expected loss on state agriculture and forestry officials whom he said haven't responded adequately to the challenge of recovering the quickly deteriorating timber.
"I expect my people in Louisiana to give me some help, and I've seen zilch," Wood said. "The only help I got was from Mississippi. I am in the process of getting it up, but no thanks to anyone in Louisiana."
Meghan Gordon can be reached at meghangordon@hotmail.com.
Why is it 5:23 am and I am obsessed about the trees in Louisiana?
Because I think they are something to be obsessed about.
Earlier tonight, I read Michael Moore's website and it was with grief that I looked at the photos published there. www.michaelmoore.com
Years ago I went to New Orleans by thumbing rides from Aspen, Colorado. I grew up on the Mississippi (Minneapolis) and I got it into my head I NEEDED to see the delta, to see just how large it became at the end.
Funny thing about deltas. They turn into lots of tributaries! I went in August and my NO friend, Neil, took me in his car. We didn't make it far: the heat was so hot, the retreads came off the tires. The retreads lay limply by the sides of the roads and bridges like so many pulverized snakes.
********
(Remember the spiritual parable about the snake? ...
See, the Buddha is going to town. Serene as could be, he walked down the road. Suddenly, a snake leapt out of the bushes and attacked the Buddha. "Oh, snake!" he cried out, "You mustn't go about biting people!" Well, the snake wasn't very contrite as he thought that was his nature. The Buddha told him to have look inside his cold-blooded self and see if he could find the God inside. And as things would have it, the snake looked inside and discovered his living light. "So," says the Buddha, "then you must have respect for ALL living things. No more biting. Be kind to all living things. It is a much better way to live. I must go to town, but I'll drop by on my way back."
So the Buddha, having been to town, returns to find a battered, abused, ambushed snake. "Whatever happened to you?" the Buddha inquired not knowing what to think. "I followed your advice. I was kind to everyone that passed by, hoping that they would enjoy their journeys. But some people came by and hit me and beat me and called me names and left me to die." The Buddha meditated and then said, "I told you to lose your bite, not your hiss.")
So the Buddha, having been to town, returns to find a battered, abused, ambushed snake. "Whatever happened to you?" the Buddha inquired not knowing what to think. "I followed your advice. I was kind to everyone that passed by, hoping that they would enjoy their journeys. But some people came by and hit me and beat me and called me names and left me to die." The Buddha meditated and then said, "I told you to lose your bite, not your hiss.")
****
I hope the folks in New Orleans and the Gulf coast remember that the squeeky wheel gets the grease. Because these folks just got set upon. Bad. Really bad. And they have plenty to be upset about ... no matter how much or how little money they MAY have had. The civic contract was broken. They thought FEMA was their ally since they would want to protect all those pretty little oil wells, the shipping business, the tourist trade, the fisheries, the rice crop ... even Bushwhackers are pro- those things. But FEMA's mandate is something very different. The politicians LOVE of power is very different than an average citizen's love for their land, hurricane-proof or no.
The current Times Picayune is very interesting reading, folks. There are forums there to read.
There are many comments about just HOW to rescue pets. Lots of pets in New Orleans, just waiting to be rescued. It seems to rescue your pets you need to HISS ...
I had a great FEMA expose to post. But it's lost in the stacks of stuff I am accumulating. I have lots of stuff to share, because I give a hoot.
(/o\)(/o\)(/0\)(/0\)(/o\)(/o\)(/o\)(/o\)(/o\)(/o\)(/o\)(/o\)(/o\)
ALL thinking/feeling Divine/Human Being Pods Everywhere (this means you!)
Images set to Pink Floyd Us and Them -- PASS IT ON
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