Workers cut tree down in Fulwood

By Angie Thompson, Senior Reporter

January 13, 2009 11:29 pm

— TIFTON — A hollow pine tree rooted in Fulwood Park and leaning over Tift Avenue was cut down and removed Tuesday morning.
“I considered this one a hazard because it was leaning toward the road,” said park supervisor Albert Scarborough.
Scarborough said there are several trees within the park that workers will be removing in the near future, including one on the Old Ocilla Road side of the park that is also leaning across that road.
When workers cut the tree down Tuesday morning, the inside of it was hollow. It is not known how old the tree was or what caused the tree to become hollow inside.
At least four large pine trees rooted in the park have fallen without warning in the last year or so. Two fell over Tift Avenue, one over Eighth Street and one on top of a picnic table inside the park. One of the trees that fell on Tift Avenue narrowly missed a car with two people inside.
Bert Crowe, who coordinates the Tifton-Tift County Tree Board, told The Tifton Gazette in late December the city should have a better idea of what pines at Fulwood Park should be removed after a study had been completed. In July, the tree board received a $20,000 Urban and Community Forestry Grant from the Georgia Forestry Commission. The money will be used to hire an outside specialty agency to inventory trees on rights of ways and public property in the city and in the county.
Crowe said the process will involve counting, identifying and recording trees in the community and taking an inventory of the size, species, location and overall health of trees in the community’s “urban forest.”
The tree board coordinator added the monitoring portion of the program “will allow us to identify possible disease or insect problems in our trees. It will also allow us the opportunity to note trees that are damaged, need pruning or eventually be removed.”
In late December bids had been let to find the outside specialty agency to inventory trees, Crowe said. That was after the Tifton City Council approved the expenditure at its December meeting. He said then the outside specialty agency should be here to begin the work in two to three weeks.
However, Scarborough said Tuesday that he had not been contacted by anyone on the tree board concerning the tree removals.
Officers with the Tifton Police Dept. re-directed Tift Avenue traffic as the tree was cut down and removed Tuesday.

To contact senior reporter Angie Thompson, call 382-4321.