What to do if a tree falls and damages your property

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (KFVS) - The threat of flooding and damaging winds has tree removal services and insurance agents preparing for a busy next few days.

At Advanced Tree Service in Jackson, Mo., Tony Troendle prepared his business for the next threat of floods and high winds. Troendle says that whenever he shows up to a call, a majority of people don’t know how to handle the situation.

“They don’t know who to call, they don’t know what to do, all they know is they got a tree on their house and there is rain coming,” Troendle said.

At Golden Rule Insurance, Ashley Sumner said the first person you should call is your insurance agent and can call at any time.

“If I do get a phone call in the middle of the night, just like our other agents, we do pick up and we do see to make sure our people are okay,” Sumner stated.

She said the next step is this to take some pictures, and make sure you’re documenting everything.

“We have our adjusters come out take a look at everything to access the damage and we take it from there as far as filing claims,” Sumner said.

Tony Troendle said to call a tree servicer after insurance. He said removing a tree or trees from a home best case scenario is one to two hours, but worst case scenario it could be a multiple day ordeal.

Troendle also said you can look for signs that rain or water might effect your trees.

“A lot of things we look for, especially with water coming in is root base erosion, so if your tree is in a common place where water runs by it non-stop whenever it tends to rain a lot, that’s a good thing to keep an eye out for, you might want to look into some landscaping to divert water away from later on,” Troendle said.

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