In 2003, as Paris sweltered through a heat wave that would go on to kill an estimated 15,000 people across France, one oasis of cooler air remained off limits: the city’s roughly 400 public parks. They were temporarily closed because of the danger of falling tree limbs.
“That basically deprived people of the one small sliver of green space that they might have had in order to find a slightly cooler atmosphere,” says Richard C. Keller a professor of the history of medicine at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and author of “Fatal Isolation: The Devastating Paris Heat Wave of 2003.”
Trees losing their limbs is typically associated with severe weather such as tornadoes, hurricanes and thunderstorms. But a little known risk outside of arborist circles is that mature and seemingly healthy trees can suddenly lose branches in summer weather. It’s a phenomenon known as sudden limb failure, sudden limb drop or summer branch drop.
While reports of injuries from sudden limb failure are scarce, last month a woman was killed by a falling tree branch in a Washington, D.C., park. The incident prompted at least one local tree maintenance service to send an email warning people of the risk.
