ReGreen Springfield

Tree specialist Jay Girard surveys Springfield street

The Urban Forest Strike Team deployed by the US Forest Service completed their survey of the tornado damaged area on Tuesday August 16. The strike team included arborists from around the North East who traveled from several Massachusetts communities, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont to offer their expertise. The team included 21 volunteers and spent over two weeks in Springfield assisting the city’s forestry division to inventory the extent of the damage to public shade trees.

The team of certified arborists evaluated 280 street trees damaged by the tornado to determine long term viability. They also collected data on 650 existing tree locations. At these sites they identified and measured stumps of removed trees as well as located tipped stumps and vacant planting sites within the public right of way.

The Strike Team also helped the forestry division by making planting recommendations for almost 2,000 new trees including 142 existing inventoried vacant sites as well identifying 1,799 new planting locations throughout the tornado zone not previously identified in the city’s tree inventory.

The data collected by the strike team will be used to evaluate the current state of the damage to the street tree population as well as to plan the reforestation of the tornado impact zone. City forestry staff will have a large pool of potential planting locations from which to prioritize the planting efforts.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – The tornado left a bleak landscape in its wake, destroying many trees along its path. Among the ravaged areas is Court Square which lost trees that’ll be replaced with four oak trees according to Secretary of the commonwealth William Galvin, who told 22News, more help is on the way.

“There are also some private groups that are out there to help Western Massachusetts restore it’s street trees,” said Galvin. Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno said, “Many of these trees have been around for many years, they also bring tranquility and quality of life, and they also pertain to your home.”

The tornado damage has left so many people heartbroken. Bill Fiegel who lives in Springfield’s East Forest park neighborhood told 22News the twister destroyed six of his trees, “It just makes it feel less homey to me, because you don’t have the trees change of color or raking the leaves.” As secretary Galvin explained to 22News, the first order of business is to help tornado victims restore their homes, and now come the trees, a massive project that began Wednesday at Springfield’s court square.

Click Here to view complete video story.