What's Wrong....

with this picture? Where to begin.....

This is the home of my neighbors. We live in Takoma Park, Maryland. Takoma Park is both an azalea city, and a tree city. We love trees, we love azaleas. We just love!

So back to the photograph that I snapped this afternoon. The home belongs to my neighbors. It's a crime scene. The victim is the power...Monsieur Electricity ~ he's dead. And why? This is the question any good detective asks, non?

Let us begin with the witness interview. I was watching the closing segments of a Law & Order episode on TNT network on my HDTV when suddenly an explosion reverberated though my home and everything went dark and silent. The power, it was dead. I know this, because it has been killed three times in the past month, but before it was assassinated in the midst of power storms. This day, it was simple snuffed out without any apparent cause. Ergo, I began my investigation.

I instinctively drove to the bottom of the hill in my neighborhood, because I have long eyed with suspicion exhibit A. The ancient tree that has grown over my neighbor's home. It is a veritable Sword of Damocles without all of the mythological meaning the metaphor implies. It's just one hulking tree waiting to vivisect one humble home!

All of this pretense aside, here's where things get really ugly. The rain apparently loosened the soil just enough to cause tree "A" to sag into tree "B" just enough to snap one of it's boughs "C", which crossed the live wires and initiated the transformer box explosion and power outage in the neighborhood. Can you say warning shot? Clearly tree "A" only has more havoc in it's future.

So I asked the owner of the house about this. Apparently all of their concern about the tree has fallen upon the deaf ears of the Takoma Park arborist. An paid employee with the only and last word upon the fate of trees in Takoma Park.

The home owners have only recently been given (after multiple attempts) the right to have the dangerous tree removed, but because it is a living tree, they must also pay my town a fee of $1,500 in addition to the cost of removal. Now, I have to ask you to LOOK AT THE PHOTO AGAIN! This tree's topple could easily cost the homeowners' $100,000.00 to repair, not to mention the injury and/or death to anyone inside the structure when the tree finally gives way.

Further, there is the neighborhood to consider. At least one inhabitant of this neighborhood is elderly and in failing health. Should this tree give way to gravity and crash into this house taking with it all of the power lines around it, who is responsible for the domino effect that could likely lead to his death in a time of prolonged exposure to heat or cold? And what of the fact that the homeowners, in spite of their own desire to have it removed where blocked first by Herr Arborist and, finally by a ridiculous and unreasonable fine placed upon then by a city that values the life of one mis-shapen and ill-placed tree over the welfare of its citizens?

Let's hope it never comes to this.

UPDATE: The Tree is Gone!

I sent an email about the situation to my city council member, Fred, and he visited the home, got a waiver on the tax, and helped the home owner find a company to remove the tree. I learned later that the home owner also called Fred for assistance. From crisis to solution: 36 hours. Sometimes government works. Who knew?