Widowmaker crushed my Lean-To!!!

[Md 25v]

I am posting this in hopes that a similar situation may be avoided by others.

Guys, I screwed up. Lets just get that out of the way early.
I used to belong to the M.A.P.S. group (Mid-Atlantic Primitive Skills group) but haven't attended lately due to scheduling conflicts with work. Along with monthly meets, the entire organization gets together twice a year to practice crafts and skills and just hang out. I was hiking with a friend today and we decided to visit one of the shelters I had made during one of our events. It was a lean-to shelter and the purpose was to teach the younger ones how to thatch roofing. I made the stick-structure and the kids would gather materials and thatch the roof and wall and anyone brave enough would sit inside while we dumped a couple 5 gallon buckets of water on it to see just how waterproof it really was. This was a big eye opener to a lot of people, and not just the kids, of how hard it is to really waterproof a structure without a tarp or trash bag.
We use the same stick structure for each thatching (thatch from earlier groups helps feed the fire) and just have the kids bring more materials so that we don't have to drop to many trees for framework but everyone gets a chance to try the skill.

The first thing that we do before the materials for the roofing are even gathered is go over why we choose a specific spot for the shelter. We go over Widowmakers, among other things, and have the kids look around and point out potential dangers in other areas so they can show that they understand. In selecting a site for this one I made sure there were no dead branches overhanging, and no dead trees that were within falling distance. Everything looked in order.

The frame was now a few years old and we were curious to see if it was still standing. When we arrived we found a large LIVE Pine tree had fallen on it! I studied the whole thing carefully and finally figured out what happened. The soil was mostly sand and the trees are poorly anchored to begin with. I did NOT take this into consideration. When the river flooded last Feb saturating the sand and then there was a heavy storm with high winds and the sandy soil gave out to the weight of the big Loblolly Pine.

This experience is both humiliating and humbling. Often, people sleep in the shelters we make during the week long events and if there had been a storm then, it could have lead to injuries or worse. I will never make this mistake again and thankfully noone was hurt.

 

[Esav Benyamin]

Experience is a great teacher and it's always good to learn from someone else's "experience"

Thanx for passing on the lesson!

 

[rroundy]

a firefighter was killed here a couple of weeks ago as he slept in his tent. a widowmaker fell off in the night during a storm. his buddies awoke in the morning and found him dead. i truly never thought about it much. but obviously it does happen. be easy on yourself; i doubt most people would have caught your situation.

ryan

 

[Iboschi]

Thanks for passing this experience on! Glad no one was hurt.

 

[Joezilla]

hey thats wild! great post. At least you know where to find some fatwood in a few years

 

[MustardMan]

Those big pines can be uprooted in a storm even without sandy soil. Their roots do NOT go deep at all. I had a 50-footer about 20 feet from my house go down. Luckily, it fell parallel to the house and didn't do any damage. I was in the house on the second floor when that thing came crashing down - if it had fallen on me I would have been in serious trouble.

 

[kgd]

Well, sometimes sh-t can happen no matter what you plan. Not your fault in the least. Not even sure you can predict which live tree might fall under a stochastic event.

One of the things I do at work is run mathematical models that attempt to follow fish through their life and determine how the growth, thermal behavior and food choices influence how individuals accumulate chemicals. The interesting thing comes when you start to put 'fuzz' into those models by using distributions of inputs and a fancy method called Monte Carlo simulations. Anyway, when you consider the error in inputs, these fuzzy models can often predict a very wide range of possible outputs. We actually use these approaches to compute risk that translates into a question: what is the probability that a fish of species X and slot size captured in Y location will have contaminant levels that exceed human concern levels?

Now consider your own assessment for choosing a site to build a shelter as a risk assessment. You make a few errors or assumptions with each observation, noting potential hazards and discounting certain hazards as unlikely to occur. Cumulatively those errors across multiple observations build. Once in a while you get the wrong set of events that create a nasty situation even your individual assessments gaged an identified hazard as unlikely. In otherwords SHTF. Hey it happens. Thats why weather forcasters like to use fancy words like a 100 year rain event...

 

[MustardMan]

You had me at Monte Carlo simulations...

I used to do a lot of those when I was a computational guy, before I became an experimentalist.

 

[Snakedoc]

Wow, thanks for posting your experience, it is a real eye-opener.

I don't give much thought to falling branches or trees when I am out. Time to start.

 

[myright]

Your not talking about the Pine Barrens by any chance are you?
Glad you weren't in it when it happened?

 

[kgd]

I used to do a lot of those when I was a computational guy, before I became an experimentalist.

Poor bastard Actually I'm at about 30% modelling, much of the rest is experimental and observational data. The nice thing about modelling is I can charge the big bucks and it don't cost me anything except time.

 

[Md 25v]

Thanks guys for the supportive words. I'm chilling out a bit now but I was really angry a few hours ago at the thought of how things could have turned out. You all are right though. I guess there are going to be those random (I hate the word random) things that are just to infrequent to predict.

Your not talking about the Pine Barrens by any chance are you?
Glad you weren't in it when it happened?

Nope, this was on a plot of forested land near the top of the Susquehanna river in Md.

 

[tonym]

Great post!

I wouldn't of caught that, hell I may have strung my hammock from it...

 

[11x11x]

I been introduced to widowmakers last winter. The same as you dude, live pine trees snapping in half. About 8' of the crown on one in my yard, and another 150 footer snapped in half, falling longways over our walking trail. I had to section it off to clear it.

 

[newadventure]

You mentioned you selected the site and built the frame a few years ago. Not sure the "average survivalist" would expect it to be functional that long; maybe for a few days or weeks, but not years. Things change over time. If you looked at the site more recently, maybe you would not have picked it. Good thing to be aware of, but don't be too hard on yourself.

 

[SouthernCross]

G'dya MD 25V

In Australia, our predominate native species (ie Eucalypts) regularily self prune by dropping limbs.

Widow makers are something I am acutely aware of (including soil type that aren't deep enough to support larger tree irrespective of species).

A timely reminder for all :thumbup:



Kind regards
Mick

 

[PropThePolecat]

Forgive my ignorance, but ive never heard the term widowmaker before...Is it a rotten tree that gets toppled by strong winds?

 

[DWK2]

It can also refer to a large dead branch on a live tree. Those are a significant concern in many areas where I backpack.

DancesWithKnives

 

[ROCK6]

Yeah, my dad and I use to do a lot of wood cutting and he referred to the big dead branches or trees that have fallen but were hung up on another tree as widow-makers. If you're not paying attention while using the chainsaw, they could come down and hit you...resulting in your death and your wife a widow!

When backpacking/camping, I do look for a good site and check for no dead branches above. Your situation was quite different and that could have happened to anybody...an uprooted tree is hard to predict. You do bring up a good point about inspecting your improvised shelters periodically to either check on damage or conditions. If the conditions look threatening, you could always take it down, keeping somebody else away for using it as a shelter. The good news is that nobody was hurt, it is now a dissassembled shelter and you get to build a new one in a better location

ROCK6

 

[pvicenzi]

Good thing to look out for when seting up in the bush. I know that in national forest campgrounds, the maintenance people do it for you. I've seen camps sites closed down untill dangerous trees/limbs can be removed. Always look up....

Oh, glad no one was hurt.