Storms Topple New England’s Trees, and Raise Residents’ Fears

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/us/storms-topple-new-england-trees-and-raise-fears.html

WILBRAHAM, Mass. — First came the tornado, which felled five big trees and sent them crashing down on half the house, forcing Heather Mercier and Ellie Tobiasz to move into a mobile home on their property while the house was being repaired.

 

Several weeks later, a microburst with ferocious winds tore up another tree by its roots and smashed it into the mobile home. Three months after that, an early blizzard knocked down two more big trees, wrecking the remaining part of their house.

“You’d think we lived in Kansas,” said Ms. Mercier, 52, a retired police officer on disability. “Things like this don’t happen in western Massachusetts.”

But as residents across New England are realizing, violent, “Wizard of Oz"-like storms do happen here. And for some, the region’s iconic sugar maples, birches and oaks — majestic towers that provide shade in the summer and colorful splendor in the fall — are no longer a source of pride but of terror.