On July 29, during a very heavy rain storm,  a 30-foot-long tree limb fell across my street.  The limb was from a city-owned tree on the tree belt in front of my house.  It completely blocked the street and was, in part, leaning on electric wires.  Soon after the limb fell, the Greenfield Fire Department was at my door making sure that everything was fine and asking if I needed to leave my driveway. Within five minutes of that knock on the door, DPW workers arrived and set to work cutting the limb apart and removing it from the street. The whole process took about 40 minutes. After they were done, no one would have known that there had been a problem unless they looked carefully at the tree itself.  No people or property had been hurt by the limb falling. Things could not have gone better.

I noticed that there was a significant hole in the remaining part of the limb, a limb larger than the piece that had fallen.  As we are moving toward winter and I was concerned about the condition of the rest of the limb, I contacted DPW Director Paul Newell to ask if someone could come by to assess the tree before the end of the fall. Director Newell immediately responded to me that he would have someone look at the tree the following week. And so they did. At 8:30 a.m. on a recent morning, two DPW workers assessed the tree. They told me that the limb is hollow and they thought it would have to come down, but that they had to get authority to do so.  At 10:30 a.m. on the same day the DPW workers were back to take down that limb. As I write this, it is not yet 11 a.m. and the limb is down, chipped and the debris from it is being put into the chipper.

I would like to thank Director Newell and his crew for their quick response to an issue that could have resulted in harm to people or property in my neighborhood. Public employees do not often get the thanks that they deserve for the work that they do. This is one Greenfield resident who is most grateful to them for their response to a problem that could have waited for a while, but was prioritized by their analysis and thoughtfulness. Again, thank you.

Susan Worgaftik

Greenfield