A very tall tree collapsed on the south side of Santa Monica Boulevard in front of the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station property this afternoon, catching the attention of numerous passers-by.
The collapse blocked the Santa Monica entrance to the parking lot for Sheriff’s Station employees although another entrance was available.
Lt. Daren Diviak said that no one was injured. He said it’s likely the tree fell because the soil underneath it had been weakened by recent rainfall.
The eye catching tree looks like a eucalyptus (blue gum tree). Probably good it fell over, the tree is beautiful but notorious in California for sucking water, damaging pipes, being invasive and catching fire almost instantly if lit.
I could swear the city pays an Arborist team a lot of money to identify such trees….seems rotted out to me.
It is likely that there are many out-of-scale, large trees in the city, sitting on possibly unstable ground due to the rise and fall of the ground water table, noted in the western sections as being 10 to feet below surface. From drought to overflow and back. I’m sue that the city is aware of those which might collapse due to ground stability, stressed conditions and size.