Looking into the future of Missoula's urban forest

Missoula turned into a wind tunnel on July 24, with speeds of over 80 miles an hour.

Since then crews have been hard at work cleaning up what has felt like treemaggedon to many.

“This is the worst we've ever had. We always have a couple of windstorms every year, you know, but nothing on this scale,” said City of Missoula Urban Forestry Department project specialist Marie Ducharme.

Ducharme told MTN that normally specific tree species have unique ways that they fail but this wind storm blew that all away. "Anything that's above 73 miles an hour, any healthy tree can fail," she stated.

During the storm, trees were uprooted, and huge falling branches left thousands without power while trapping and destroying cars.

Aborist and Mountain Tree Company Cooper Elwood owner explained that he was watching the storm from his porch and saw massive trees come down.

“I was there just in front of my house here watching a bunch of trees come down. There were a bunch of spruce right alongside here and they went across Clements and just totally blocked it off and took out a bunch of power lines."

The City of Missoula has what’s known as an urban forest and a plan to manage those trees.

“So, species-wise, we have, I think about 78 species and with all the cultivars, we’re about 258. We have about 35,000 trees inventoried that we manage. We regularly update our inventory," detailed Ducharme.

Emily Brown/MTN News

Trees bring so much to Missoulians.

"Ecological benefits, the climate benefits, and then also thinking about the socio-cultural or community health benefits," shared Susan Teitelman, a climate resilience specialist for Climate Smart Missoula's Trees for Missoula program.

When the trees in the urban forest have damage, arborists come to solve the problem.

The day after the wind storm, Elwood said he received over 125 calls for service. Since then, work has not slowed down.

“We're just going through and trying to make things safe at this point. But, yeah, we haven't really taken a break yet,” he said.

That's because Missoula's urban forest saw all sorts of damage — from hanging limbs to trees completely ripped in half.

“We're looking at about 430 trees that are identified as removals. And then we also have some that have already been removed. So, we're cataloging those stumps. and we're still gathering that data going back out and re-canvassing,” Ducharme explained.

Emily Brown/MTN News

For many, cleanup has been overwhelming, and the loss of foliage has been sad. “The tree people that I know, we're all talking and we're really grieving right now,” said Ducharme.

Along with getting rid of all the tree carnage, comes hope for a revitalized urban forest plan and for new roots to take hold.

“Grieving and then action go hand in hand. It's a wonderful opportunity because people are thinking about trees now," Teitelman offered.

“We are working on updating our design manual that's going to happen this year. And along with that is the approved street tree list," Ducharme added. Climate-adaptive species are our main goal and making sure that what we're planting now is what's going to be climate adaptive for the next 100 years.”

People can volunteer with programs like Trees for Missoula or learn tree care practices to help reinvigorate Missoula's urban forest.