Crew members from the City of Three Rivers’ Department of Public Services worked to clear several large tree branches that fell on 8th Street Friday afternoon. The branches came from a large tree that stands between the sidewalk and the curb on 8th Street just south of Broadway Street. The branches landed on the street, sidewalk, The Huss Project parking lot, and overhead utility lines. One large branch rested on the overhead lines as the work took place.
Rob Vander Giessen-Reitsma is the executive director of *culture is not optional, the organization that owns and manages The Huss Project. He and several staff were working behind the Huss building when the branch fell. “We came to work this morning, and everything was fine,” he said. “We started working the farm in the back of Huss, and then walked up around 10:30 and it was like, ‘Oh. Tree’s down.’”
Another eyewitness previously phoned the city to report the fallen branches, and EMS was on scene to block off the street. “We’d been waiting for it to happen for a while, because it was pretty rotted,” Vander Giessen-Reitsma said. Crews on scene told him the branch had been down about half an hour, so it probably fell around 10 a.m.
“Thankfully no one was hurt, but we didn’t hear it, which was sort of strange,” Vander Giessen-Reitsma said. “Really early this morning, we had all the high winds whipping through,” he said, describing how he found it interesting that “it held on for five more hours and then just said, ‘eh, I’m done.’”
Dave Vago is a staff writer and columnist for Watershed Voice. A Philadelphia native with roots in Three Rivers, Vago is a planning consultant to history and community development organizations and is the former Executive Director of the Three Rivers DDA/Main Street program.
