My Neighbor's Tree Branch

 I woke up at 5 AM to the sound of heavy wind gusting outside. Normally, the city weather sirens go off if a storm has the potential to cause damage. But this time, there was no warning and no alerts on my phone. Still the wind gusts had me worried. I got out of bed and took a look out the front window. In front of our house, the next-door neighbor has a giant maple tree near the property line. I watched the tree swaying violently back and forth in the wind. My initial concern was if the shingles on our roof would survive the heavy wind gusts. I looked back at the neighbor's tree just in time to see a large 8" diameter branch break off and fly through the air. It landed at the edge of our driveway, about 30 feet away from the tree.

Shortly after that, a smaller branch broke off and landed on a small birch tree in our front yard. I went to the weather app on my phone. Radar showed a narrow band of thunderstorms over the city. It looked like the storm was due to pass by in the next 10 minutes, so I went back to bed. The next morning, this is what my yard looked like:

The branch is much larger than it looks and weighed several hundred pounds.

In the photo below, you can see how far the branch flew through the air.

I guess I'm responsible for cleaning up anything that falls in my yard. It took about two hours to cut and pick up the branches that had fallen. In the Fall, this tree dumps several inches of leaves on our lawn, which I always look forward to removing. Trees are nice to have around unless you have one that overhangs your yard with a neighbor that isn't interested in tree maintenance.