Short went to the back of his property to check on his chickens and heard another big \u201ccrack\u201d.<\/p>\n
Nick Short at his property the day after two trees fell. Photo \/Zoe Mills<\/p>\n
A second tree, which he described as \u201cmassive\u201d, fell and also landed on his property. It wrecked his front yard and other trees and plants in it, a fence and part of the front pavement, and narrowly missed his house.<\/p>\n
\u201cI looked up at the sky beside the Cancer Society [Gisborne East Coast Cancer Society base located next door], and there was nothing there \u2013 nothing\u201d.<\/p>\n
Cancer Society centre co-ordinator Trudy McNeil was alerted to the incident on Sunday night.<\/p>\n
As well as tearing up the footpath, the tree took out a cable, leaving the branch without internet. <\/p>\n
McNeil said it had been a logistical \u201cnightmare\u201d.<\/p>\n
The tree had been a source of concern and was suspected of being a danger \u201cfor a while now\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n
She understood branches had been ripped from the same tree during Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023.<\/p>\n
Short, who owns a contracting business, brought in his team to assist in the clean-up on Monday morning.<\/p>\n
He estimated the tree was more than 100 years old and would cost \u201cat least a couple of grand\u201d to clean up.<\/p>\n
He had insurance but said the damage had left \u201ca hell of a mess\u201d.<\/p>\n
Liquidambar trees, often known as sweet gum, have been known to cause damage to surrounding infrastructure because of their shallow and aggressive roots. The Auckland Botanic Gardens website says the tree is not suited for a home garden unless there is plenty of space.<\/p>\n
Short intended to donate a portion of the wood as winter approaches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Short went to the back of his property to check on his chickens and heard another big \u201ccrack\u201d.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[432,74,95,23995,2837,163916,13989,50363,43972,12506,52963,11676,10053,77273,6501,138334,111,43,139,69,1118,814,60445,673,23371,199,2846,10419,810],"class_list":{"0":"post-379373","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-action","9":"tag-after","10":"tag-and","11":"tag-downed","12":"tag-during","13":"tag-evasive","14":"tag-fell","15":"tag-fence","16":"tag-footpath","17":"tag-gisborne","18":"tag-gladstone","19":"tag-hell","20":"tag-house","21":"tag-mess","22":"tag-missing","23":"tag-narrowly","24":"tag-new-zealand","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-newzealand","27":"tag-nz","28":"tag-of","29":"tag-property","30":"tag-rip","31":"tag-storm","32":"tag-sundays","33":"tag-take","34":"tag-them","35":"tag-trees","36":"tag-up"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}