For those of you who haven’t noticed the enormous tree lying in the street on Valencia between 20th and 19th streets — well, there’s a tree there.
No casualties except for the aforementioned Ford Focus, which was parked there by an out-of-town family visiting an in-town relative. They were inside the Pirate Store at 826 Valencia at the time, and didn’t even hear it happen, they say.
The current hypothesis is that the excavation work at Mission Playground damaged the tree’s root structure. Because of this, the city is almost certainly going to be liable for the damage done to the car.
The SFPD arrived quickly at the scene of the grisly incident and marked it off with yellow crime tape, yelling at anyone in the crowd of curious onlookers who approached the tree too closely.
Off to the side, another officer apologized to the mother of the family on behalf of the tree. “This isn’t much,” he said, pulling a strip of SFPD stickers out of his pocket. “But give these to the kids.”
He then posed with her in front of the tree and crime-scene tape, smiling, for a souvenir photo of their time in San Francisco.
so i just have a few things to say… as this eventful afternoon affected me directly. first of all, how awesome that a freak accident like this didn’t harm a single person or damage anything other than my vehicle!! please, take a moment, please, to acknowledge how much worse this could’ve been. *moment*
i want to commend all the city workers. they literally sprang into action to begin damage control procedures and were deeply apologetic. everyone from the DPW, to the park rangers, to the SFPD to the fire department fell all over themselves making sure i had the right forms, incident numbers and knew what to expect and not to worry as it was clearly “not my fault”. they were quick to take action and ready/willing to take responsibility. three of the men working with the DPW came over to me to shake my hand and personally apologize. doesn’t get better than that. this attitude and courtesy was maintained while simultaneously securing the scene from curious passerby’s, enraged residents, etc, knowing full well that the two remaining trees continued to be a safety hazard. good job guys! also, the stickers we got from the friendly cop (and that epic photo) made the entire thing worth it. well that, and the big log you cut off the tree for me to keep as a souvenir. boss.
i am *disappointed*, however, in some of the zanier residents of the neighborhood who took advantage of an unfortunate accident to yell at public workers. not only was this accident not about YOU, but it was just that, a freak accident. I kid you not, I heard the following comments while standing there, patiently waiting for my car to be extracted:
“TREE KILLERS!!”
srsly, you kooky old lady, what the fuck. *who* is a tree killer, exactly? no one drove by and shot the tree up so that it would fall to its dramatic and sappy death. no one was secretly plotting and scheming in the hopes that it would fall and wringing their hands maniacally while it did in celebration of its glorious destruction. i mean, what part of “accident” isn’t resonating with you? you think that city worker was stoked when it keeled over!? think about what’s going through his head (oh shit, i’m gonna lose my job!)
“I heard the guy that did this just ran off! the nerve!”
okay, when you say “guy” you actually mean “tree” right? cuz last i checked, the tree was still sitting solidly on top of my car. and the poor DPW worker who was dutifully doing his job jackhammering around it was actually the first one to make the call to get help. so no… no one man, or tree, fled the scene. it was quite the opposite.
“get a picture of the baby seat. GET A PICTURE OF THE BABY SEAT INSIDE THE CAR!!! you can sue the city for emotional damage!”
look, i know you’re trying to help. but stop panicking. that isn’t helping anything. the baby is fine. the baby is right behind me. lady listen, stop freaking out. the baby is right here. seriously, look at the baby, let that sink in… see how it’s laughing and cooing in my sister’s arms? no one was hurt. i’m not gonna “sue” for emotional damage. i’m not that upset. plus, that’s greedy and dumb.
“why are you cutting down all these trees!? I live right across the street and I demand to know why! why? why? why? you’ve cut down 10 already! as a longtime resident of this neighborhood — ”
dude. we’re kind of dealing with something right now. can you please go away? this is not the time or place to assert your opinions about what is being done to the park. what good will come out of aggressively confronting the people that are trying to make sure everyone is safe from harm. no one did this to *you*. and you are not helping. in fact, you are just getting people keyed up. are you done? do you feel better now? good. now go to your room and eat a sammich.
i love you san francisco, but in your passion to care about stuff, you sometimes get it wrong.
we have it pretty darn good here thanks to equally passionate city workers that saved the day.
<3,
k and her car, "lucky"
THANK YOU. your sane and intelligent perspective is truly needed. and appreciated.
also, in case anyone is curious…
i parked the car and less than two minutes later, with everyone safely out of the vehicle and halfway down the block… CRACK! it came crashing down.
stunned i walked briskly to the car to assess the damage. amazingly (truly, this is amazing) the tree lovingly CUPPED the car… there was barely any damage at all. it kind of fell over the car. if i had parked a foot or two more forward, or had waited 2 minutes more before getting out, the car surely would have been totalled and/or people badly injured.
luckily no one was harmed. nothing else was damaged (aside from the tree *sad accident*). and the car escaped with some scratching, three quarter sized dents (very shallow impressions) and a bent side view mirror.
very exciting for my visiting family, i assure you.
cheers!
Wasn’t one of the trees in that line already removed because it was diseased?
Yes, and I think the plan was to eventually remove them all. I love street trees but these were so overgrown that they actually made that stretch of sidewalk really creepy and despressing.
It does’t surprise me that the construction project/crew undermined the root base of a tree enough to have it come crashing down. The work seems to be as haphazard as the planning. Why shut down the only major parks (Dolores and Mission Playground) both at the same time, right when school was getting out, and leave kids with no where to play all summer?
Furthermore, the old playground was amazing. My kids loved it, from 1.5 yrs old to 9 years old. But they had to rip it all out for the start of summer to put something new and shiny in the ground while our state and country go broke! If we have money to burn, let’s cut budgets, reduce our operating deficits and pay down our debt.
Wah wah waaaah… http://www.sadtrombone.com
Get a life; a person makes an intelligent comment and all you do is reply with sarcasm. You are truly a loser.
We love out Police Department. Rec and Parks needs a little more work.
Rec and Park needs more funding, more staff, and a bit more respect.