Emergency Tree Service in Athens, GA
If a tree is on your house, your car, or across your drive, call (571) 412-0006. The phone is the fast route. A form is not.
First, before you call anyone
If a tree or limb is touching a power line, or a line is down, treat it as live. Stay well back, keep everyone else back, and call the utility. Nobody should be near it, and no tree company should touch it until the line is confirmed dead. This is the one situation where waiting is the correct answer.
If a tree is on the house, get out of the rooms underneath it. Ceilings and roof structures fail on a delay.
If anyone is hurt or trapped, call 911 first. We are not the first call in that situation.
Photograph everything before anything is moved. This matters later. Insurers want to see the damage as it happened, and once a crew has cut the tree into sections and hauled it off, the evidence is gone. Wide shots and close shots, from several angles, including the base of the tree and the point of impact.
What actually counts as an emergency
Being honest about this saves you money, because emergency response costs more than scheduled work.
Call now
- A tree or large limb on a house, garage, vehicle, or fence
- A tree down across a driveway or blocking access
- A trunk that has split, or a large limb hanging in the canopy and not yet on the ground
- A tree that shifted in a storm, with soil lifting or cracking around its base
- Anything involving a power line, after you have called the utility
This can be scheduled
- A dead tree that has been dead for a while and is not leaning toward anything
- Limbs touching the roof that are not broken
- Storm debris in the yard, away from the house
- A tree you have been meaning to deal with since last year
If you are unsure which list you are on, call and describe it. We would rather talk you out of an emergency call than sell you one.
What we do when we get there
Make it safe first, tidy it second. The initial job is to take the load off the structure and get anything hanging out of the canopy, in a controlled way. Cutting a loaded tree in the wrong order is how people get hurt, and a tree lying against a roof is under tension in ways that are not obvious from the ground.
Then the removal and the cleanup. Sectioning down what is left, clearing the debris, and raking the site.
Then the rest. Once the urgent part is done we can look at what the storm did to the trees still standing, which is often where the next failure is waiting.
Storm damage and your insurance
This is where most homeowners lose money, so it is worth reading before you file.
Athens-Clarke County publishes guidance on Georgia tree law that is unusually clear on two points.
Whose insurance pays when a neighbor's tree falls on you. Under the county's guidance, if a neighbor's apparently healthy tree falls onto your property, your own insurer handles the claim. If the tree had known defects, it is their insurer's responsibility. That single distinction decides a great many disputes, and it explains why documentation of a tree's condition before it fails matters so much. If you have been worried about a neighbor's tree, a written opinion from a qualified arborist, delivered so there is a record of it, is far stronger than a conversation over the fence.
What a policy typically covers for the trees themselves. The county's guidance notes that many homeowner policies limit coverage for trees to roughly $500 per tree, with a maximum of about 5% of the dwelling limit, and that this coverage typically applies to causes such as fire, lightning, vandalism, vehicle damage, and theft. It also notes that damage caused by wind and hail is not covered for trees under most policies.
Read that carefully, because it is easy to misread: this is about replacing the tree. Damage the tree does to your house is a different part of your policy. Check your own documents, and ask your insurer rather than assuming, because policies vary.
The same county guidance also mentions that some insurers ask homeowners to remove every tree within a certain distance of the house, and describes that as an overreaction to the risk. If you are under that kind of pressure, it is worth getting an opinion before you remove thousands of dollars of mature canopy.
Free help you are already paying for
Athens-Clarke County offers tree management consultations to county residents as a tax-funded service, and runs a Community Tree Program with a home tree consultation you can register for. If your question is "is this tree actually dangerous", that is a genuinely useful place to start, and it costs you nothing beyond the taxes you already pay. We will still be here afterwards.
Common questions
Do I need permission to remove a storm-damaged tree?
Athens-Clarke County's ordinance will never require a hazardous tree to be kept on an urban site. The rules on protected trees and on lots developed since 2005 still apply to the paperwork, and we cover them on the tree rules page.
Will you work with my insurance company?
We provide a clear written scope and price for the work, which is what an adjuster needs to see. We do not negotiate claims on your behalf, and we would be suspicious of any tree company that offered to.
Can you tarp the roof?
Roof repair is a roofer's job. Our part is getting the tree off safely so the roofer can get to work.
What does emergency work cost?
More than scheduled work, because it involves getting a crew out at short notice and often under worse conditions. The cost page explains what drives the number.
A limb is hanging but has not fallen. Is that urgent?
Yes. A hanging limb has already failed, it is simply waiting on gravity, and nobody can predict when. Do not park under it.
Call now
(571) 412-0006. Tell us what you are looking at and where you are.
If it is not urgent, the written estimate route is the better one.