While emergency crews were busy on Sunday with trees and power lines down across Indiana County, a tree service company and a home repair service were busy with a dead tree that fell into someone’s home in the White’s Woods development.
In a news release, White Township announced that the tree fell over as a result of the strong storms that came through the area and crashed through the roof over a bedroom at the home of David Babyak. He and his guests were in another room of the house at the time. No injuries were reported.
The tree that fell was a dead ash tree, estimated to be about 90 years old and at least 80 feet tall, according to Dave Henry, the operator of a Burrell Township tree removal company. The tree was eventually cut apart and the pieces were taken back into the forest.
Township officials say an incident like this one stresses the urgent need for a forestry management plan. Such a plan was developed for the township by Millstone under a 2019 consultant agreement but progress on the plan was stopped in 2020 by a lawsuit filed by Friends of White’s Woods.
Supervisors Chairman George Lenz said in a statement that they were grateful no one was hurt and the damage was not greater, but he felt that it could have been avoided had the township and the Forestry Bureau been allowed to do the work they needed to do to implement a plan for White’s Woods.
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