A Sound of Recovery

As deadly tornados continue to roll across the plains in this month of May, I cannot forget my own home-state's historic trial with these devastating storms. Over the long hours of April 25-28, 2011, 358 tornados formed over 21 states, many in the South, causing $11 billion in damage and much, much worse, killing 321 people.

On April 27, 2011, my wife, daughter and I spent most of the day in the basement of our home as tornado sirens sang out a half-dozen times across the wooded mountains and hills of central Alabama. We had lost contact with our two sons who were literally ducking a large tornado tearing through homes and killing 20 people in and around Birmingham, where they lived. It is an indescribably sick feeling to be talking to one son, and then suddenly not, as you watch a televised tornado bearing down on his college campus. As 2x4s and shingles fell from the sky, they both eventually called to assure us they were safe.

Sixty-two Alabama tornados destroyed homes and businesses on that day -- 11 of them were catastrophic EF4 and EF5 storms. One EF5, with winds of 210 miles per hour leveled the small community of Hackleburg, Alabama, killing 18 people. That single storm stayed on the ground for 132 miles and killed 72 Alabamians. The Alabama storms of April 27 took 252 lives.

In the days and weeks after, my church, Liberty Baptist, in Chelsea, Alabama, helped in the recovery. One sound was a constant. Chainsaws. In Hackleburg, it was a sound of hope.

Useful as they are, chainsaws improperly used compound the damage of a storm. Post-storm studies of the medical treatments performed on April 27 and after, found that 70% of injuries were the direct results of severe weather. Thirty percent of injuries were reported post-storm. Of those, one in seven was injury sustained while using a chainsaw.

One emergency responder said: "Everyone has a saw. But only 10% know how to use them."

"They are tremendously powerful tools," says Charlie Hoffman, a certified arborist out of Trevor, Wisconsin. "But unfortunately, chainsaws are treated with the same respect as a household power drill." He adds, "Statistically, you're not going to die. But you are going to be maimed."

The cutting chain of a saw at full throttle rips across wood at 5,000 feet per minute, or 83 feet per second. More than 600 cutting teeth pass by a single point in one second. Raked across an unprotected leg, the damage caused in one second by 600 cutting teeth (the time it takes to say "600 cutting teeth") is sickeningly catastrophic. A chain-sawed gash requires an average 110 stitches to close it.

Storm damaged trees are bundles of conflicting pressures that, when wrongly relieved by an ill-placed cut, strike out with the lethality of a gunshot. Chainsaw work accounts for 40,000 injuries a year, most to the upper leg and hands. Forty to 50 people will die in tree cutting accidents this year.

Cut without safety gear, ignore overhead hazards, toss the user manual aside, fail to account for the unstoppable roll of a trunk, and grave injury is but a moment away.

Mark Chisholm urges patience. He is a third-generation, certified arborist, a member of chainsaw manufacturer Team STIHL and a competitive tree-climbing champion.

"First thing," he says, "look up." Branches dangling up in the trees are called "widow makers" for good reason. They drop to the ground without warning. Widow makers kill.

Second, look for power lines. If a power line is not still attached to the house or barn, where is it? If there is a wire within a 10-foot radius of the tree you want to cut, stay away. Live wires kill.

Third, work from ground level, only. Better to lift trees from a house by a capable skid steer loader or a tractor with forks or grapples than fall from a roof with a running saw. Falls kill.

Professional cutters take the time to decipher the pressures of twist and compression.

• A branch bent sharply by another object will suddenly spring up if the object holding it down is removed.

• The limbs of a downed tree are under tremendous pressure. Cutting them without understanding the directional force of that pressure is highly hazardous.

• Root balls are dangerous. If the operator cuts through the trunk too close to the ball, the remaining trunk section and root ball can suddenly sit upright.

• The dumbest idea? Cutting branches while standing unsecured to the tree on an extension ladder. It is the stuff of YouTube lore, of chainsawers falling from ladders, running saw in hand.

Never cut above your shoulder. Always cut with two hands. Never cut without two routes of escape, both at a 45-degree back angle to the work. Be aware always of kickback, or the rapid, upward motion of the saw toward the operator's face. It accounts for a third of all chainsaw injuries. Hitting an obstruction with the top quarter of the running chainsaw or with the nose of the saw are two causes of kickbacks.

In the years after that storm-filled Wednesday, I have heard many times the sounds of saws and recovery. My church formed a trained, 10-man chainsaw crew. We are a resource for Southern Baptist Disaster Relief; 65,000 volunteers in yellow shirts from most every state (7,000 from Alabama), all trained and ready to respond to disaster with food, equipment and chaplains. Some are working in Nepal today doing earthquake relief.

I am a cutter, and to the amazement of some friends (and maybe even to myself) a chaplain. I look up. I work on the ground. I use two hands. I take a very close look at branches and trunks before I cut. And we all, from least experienced to most, wear safety gear—helmet, ear protection, chaps, gloves and protective gloves.

We help people recover from the storms of their lives.

(BAS)

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