ST. LOUIS — It's been a loud 24 hours on Pershing Avenue. Wednesday night thunder and lightning gave way to Thursday morning chainsaws.
Forestry crews were cutting up and clearing out the hundred-foot tall tree that fell across several homes.
And now everyone on the block is looking up.
"I knew it was just a matter of time," Randall McDonald said of the tree that fell on homes down the street from his own.
Nearly everyone we spoke with on the block has raised concerns about the tall, old trees. McDonald has even called the city about the city-owned trees in front of his home.
"When the wind blows [and] storms come, branches fall off," McDonald said as he points to brand at his feet. "Just like this one right here. Branches fall off all the time."
The city's trimmed back the trees closest to McDonald, but he's worried it's not enough.
"When I heard that a tree had fallen on a house, I thought 'Oh no, we didn't get to one in time,'" Ward 28 Alderwoman Heather Navarro said. "The one that fell -- from what I could tell from our records – was not one that we were worried about. It was a big, beautiful, healthy tree."
Navarro said she sat down with the forestry department in earlier this year to look at all the trees that need to be removed in Ward 28.
Though the tree that fell Wednesday night was not one of them, she said people need to keep reporting potential problems so they can add dangerous trees to the removal list.
"Make sure that it gets on that list because they are systematically moving through all of those trees as fast as they can," Navarro said.
Five On Your Side found at least 11 requests for tree inspections from the homes nearest to the fallen tree, running as far back as 2013. Most cases were closed, but three were still listed as "scheduled," including one report from July 2017.
"I just know, we gotta do something about these trees," McDonald said as crews continued running chainsaws down the street. "I appreciate the city coming down to my neighbors', but come down here before it's too late!"
If you need to request a tree inspection in the city of St. Louis, click here.
Contact reporter Sara Machi on Facebook and Twitter.
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