Storm Damage Cleanup Visit

Purpose

Run the first visit to a storm-hit property as a hazard assessment and a scope decision, and only then as a cleanup.

The work on a storm call comes easy and the exposure is enormous, and both come from the same source: a customer in the driveway asking you to handle it, and a crew that cuts grass being handed a job that belongs to a line crew or a certified arborist. The serious injuries in this trade's storm work trace to four things - a conductor nobody confirmed was dead, a limb hung in a canopy, a stem under tension that released, and a standing tree whose root plate had already lifted. All four are identifiable from the ground in the first fifteen minutes, and all four are invisible to someone who unloads before walking the property.

Scope

Covers the first response visit on residential and light commercial properties after wind, ice or flooding: assessment, hazard control, ground-level debris work within the shop's chainsaw program, turf and property repair, and referral of everything else.

Does not cover: any work off the ground, in a tree, or from an aerial lift; any work within the minimum approach distance of an electrical conductor; roof, structural or interior work; hazard tree removal; and routine pruning, which the tree and shrub pruning SOP owns. Snow and ice load events on commercial sites route through the commercial snow removal SOP for access and liability terms.

Roles and responsibilities

Procedure

1. Triage on the phone before a truck rolls. Ask four questions and write the answers: is anyone hurt, is any wire down or touching a tree or the house, is anything resting on the roof, mast, meter or gas riser, and is there standing water inside. Acceptance: four written answers on the job. Stop rule: a downed or contacted wire means no crew is dispatched - the customer calls 911 and the utility, and we go after the utility clears it. Hazard, and say it to the caller in these words: treat every downed wire as energized, keep people and pets at least 10 ft back, and anyone already close leaves with short shuffling steps, feet together, not long strides, because current spreads through the ground around a contact point. The 10 ft figure is OSHA's minimum approach distance for unqualified employees on lines up to 50 kV (29 CFR 1910.333(c)(3); 29 CFR 1926.416 on construction work), which binds your crew rather than the homeowner, but it is the number to give them.

2. Park clear and walk the whole perimeter with your eyes up, before unloading. Acceptance: a full lap completed, hazards flagged with cones or tape, and a photo set shot before any tool touches the ground. Wrong looks like a crew that unloads at the gate and discovers the hung limb from underneath it. Stop rule: nothing comes off the trailer until the lap is done. Hazard: hangers, meaning broken limbs lodged in a canopy, fall with no warning and release from vibration or a bump from below, so the lap is walked outside the drip line of any tree with visible breakage and nobody stands under one to look up at it.

3. Check the services before you look at a single stick of debris. Locate the service drop, the meter and mast, the gas meter and riser, and any LP tank, and note anything in contact with a limb. Acceptance: each one photographed and its condition written down. Hazard, and this one leads everything: if a gas meter or riser is struck, or anyone smells gas, everyone leaves immediately and moves upwind - no switches, no doorbell, no phone used in the area, no engine started nearby, no attempt to stop the flow - and the call to 911 and the gas utility is made from well away. Nobody re-enters for tools. A pulled or bent service mast is the utility's, not an electrician's callout you arrange.

4. Sort every stem by what is holding it, before touching any of it. Four buckets: free on the ground, under tension or compression, hung overhead, or still attached to a standing tree. Acceptance: each significant piece assigned out loud and marked, with the tension buckets flagged. Stop rule: hangers and anything you would have to leave the ground to reach are out of scope and get roped off at the drip line and referred. Hazard: a bent sapling or a pinned limb is a stored-energy device that releases faster than a person can move, so the sawyer identifies the compression side and the tension side, stands outside the arc it will travel, and takes shallow relief cuts on the compression side rather than cutting straight through the tension side.

5. Read the standing trees for root plate and structure. Walk the base of every tree near where the crew will work and look for soil lifted or cracked on the windward side, a lean that was not there before, split crotches, and long vertical cracks. Acceptance: a yes or no on each tree, written down. Stop rule: a lifted root plate means the tree can go over with no further wind, so work stops in its fall zone, the area is taped at a distance greater than the tree's height, the customer is told not to enter, and a certified arborist is called. Wrong looks like a crew working under a leaner because it stayed up through the storm, which is the same reasoning as standing under a hanger.

6. Draw the scope line and get it signed before the first cut. In scope: ground-level cutting and hauling within the limits of your chainsaw program, debris and litter, rut and divot repair, resetting mulch and edging, and checking irrigation heads. Out of scope and named individually on the form: anything overhead, anything within the approach distance of a conductor, roof and structure, and hazard trees. Acceptance: a signed scope listing the referred items by name and location. Stop rule: no verbal scope changes on a storm property - if the customer adds work, it goes on the form or it does not happen, because this is the visit where scope creep walks a crew into a canopy.

7. Set PPE and saw discipline before the saw starts. Acceptance: for every person within the drop zone, head, eye and hearing protection, cut-resistant leg protection for anyone running a saw, boots, and a saw whose chain brake works and whose chain is sharp. Nobody cuts above shoulder height, from a ladder, or one-handed. The reference standard for tree work is ANSI Z133, in the edition your state has adopted where it has adopted one and as the yardstick your insurer will use where it has not; your own PPE hazard assessment obligation sits at 29 CFR 1910.132. Stop rule: a saw with a dead brake or a dull chain goes back on the truck, because a dull chain is what makes an operator push, and pushing is what puts the tip where kickback starts.

8. Cut, drag and chip with the zone controlled. Acceptance: drop zone marked and clear, customer and family behind the tape and told to stay there, and a spotter for any traffic side. Hazard: a chipper takes the hand that follows the branch, so material is fed butt-first from the side of the infeed and released, nobody reaches past the infeed to push, and everyone working the feed knows where the bottom feed control bar is before the first branch goes in. Stop rule: thunder audible means stop, shelter in the vehicles, and use the flash-to-bang rule - a gap of 30 seconds or less means the storm is close enough to be dangerous, and work waits 30 minutes past the last thunder.

9. Repair the ground and inventory the damage you found. Fill and firm ruts, reset displaced sod and mulch, run each irrigation zone and check heads for breakage, and walk the fence, lighting and downspouts. Acceptance: a written damage list separating what the storm did from anything the crew did, each item photographed. Stop rule: any damage the crew caused is reported to the office from the property under the property damage response SOP, not mentioned at the end of the week.

10. Hand over what was done, what is left and what was referred. Acceptance: a same-day written summary listing completed work, remaining debris, and each referred hazard by location with its photo, sent to the customer and filed on the job. Stop rule: never leave an identified hazard tree on a verbal warning, because a conversation at the truck is not a record, and the referral note is the document that matters if that tree comes down on something later.

The record this produces

• Triage answers (injury, wires, structure contact, water), timestamped at the call. Read by whoever decides whether a crew rolls at all.
• Arrival photo set shot before unloading, including services, hangers and any lifted root plate. Read by the insurer and by the arborist you refer to, and it is the only proof of what the property looked like before your crew touched it.
• Signed scope with referred items named. Read by the customer when they ask why the back half is untouched, and by your carrier if a referred hazard later fails.
• Damage list, storm-caused versus crew-caused, with photos. Read by the office the same day.
• Handover summary and hazard notice, sent same day. Read months later; the referral date on it is the whole point.

Worked pass: pine down, one hanger, and a leaner in the back corner

Illustrative figures from one visit, crew of three.

Triage: nobody hurt, no wires down, nothing on the roof, no water inside. Crew dispatched. Perimeter lap at 8:10 identifies a pine across the back lawn, a broken limb lodged about two thirds up a neighboring oak, and the service drop clear. Services photographed, gas meter untouched.

Step 4 sorting: the pine trunk and about eight limbs are free on the ground, two limbs are pinned under the trunk and loaded, and the lodged limb overhead is a hanger. The hanger is taped off at the drip line and referred immediately.

Step 5 fails. At the base of the big oak in the back corner, the soil is lifted in a crescent on the windward side and a crack runs through the turf about a stride out from the trunk. That is a root plate that has already moved. Stop rule taken: work stops inside a taped radius greater than the tree's height, which takes in roughly the back third of the lawn, the customer is told in plain words that the tree can fall in still air, and a certified arborist is called from the property that morning.

The customer asks the crew to at least drag the debris out from under that tree, which is the moment this SOP exists for. The answer is no, it goes on the referral, and the debris stays until the tree is dealt with.

Work performed: front and the open two thirds of the back, three techs for about four hours. The two pinned limbs are cut with relief cuts on the compression side, from outside the arc, and both roll rather than spring. Left behind: the hanger, the leaner, and the debris inside the taped zone, roughly 40 percent of the visible debris on the property, listed item by item on the handover with the arborist referral dated that morning.

References

• 29 CFR 1910.333(c)(3) for minimum approach distance to overhead lines for unqualified employees, with 29 CFR 1926.416 as the construction counterpart; both govern your employees, not the customer.
• 29 CFR 1910.132 for the PPE hazard assessment your shop owes its crew.
• ANSI Z133, arboricultural operations safety requirements, in the edition your state has adopted where it has adopted one.
• National Weather Service lightning safety guidance for the flash-to-bang and 30-minute rules used in step 8.
• See related: the LawnCare property damage on a mowing route response SOP for damage the crew causes, and the tree and shrub pruning SOP for planned work.