Is this a right-now job, or a Monday job?

None of what follows applies while a wire is involved. A power line that has fallen or is sagging, and anything touching one, is treated as energized, and that call goes to the electric provider before it goes to anyone else. The order for the whole first hour, including the Davidson County utility numbers, is on the first hour page, and the objects nobody should touch or move before the utility and the crew arrive are gone through in storm damage: what not to touch.

These have in common that waiting makes them worse, or that somebody is currently unsafe. The damage is still developing, so the clock matters more than the calendar.

This is the tier the 24/7 line exists for.

• A tree or a large limb is resting on the house, the garage or any structure someone uses
• The roof is open to the weather and rain is still coming
• A tree is on a vehicle, or across the only way in or out
• A trunk is split, hung in another tree, or leaning further than it was an hour ago
• Anything at all is in contact with a wire, after the utility has been called

The tree has already done what it is going to do tonight, nobody is under it, and nothing is getting wetter. Waiting for daylight buys a better look at the tree and a safer setup, and there is no premium for the dark.

The honest framing for this tier is that a job done in daylight by a crew that has seen the whole tree tends to be a better job.

• A large limb is down in the yard, well clear of the house and any wire
• The tree is leaning over a structure but has not moved again and nothing is under it
• Roots have lifted and the soil on one side is cracked or humped
• A crack has opened in the trunk or a major fork
• The tree came through the fence, not the house

Nothing here is an emergency, and it is worth saying plainly because storm weeks are when people get talked into work they did not need at prices they did not compare. These are ordinary jobs.

The home page carries a fence-line check, which is a short walk-around for exactly this tier. It asks what a homeowner can actually see from the ground and says honestly which findings are worth a look and which are not.

• Deadwood in the canopy, no structure under it
• Storm debris and brush cleanup with nothing hanging
• Limbs that have grown onto the roof or over the driveway
• A stump left behind by a tree that came out on its own
• The tree that worried you during the storm and looks the same as it did last year

Homeowners ask this constantly after a storm and it is not a question a tree crew should answer over the phone about a tree nobody has looked at. It is, however, a question North Carolina State University Extension has published guidelines for, in a table anyone can read against their own tree.

Their decision guidance for storm-damaged shade trees turns on four things: whether the trunk is broken, how many live limbs are left, how far the tree is leaning, and whether the roots are still in the ground. The pattern in their table is that a tree with an intact root system and enough live structure left is usually worth keeping, and that once the trunk is broken with only a few live limbs remaining the decision is made for you.

Extension's own guidance also names who to ask for the close calls, and it is not a tree crew: they point homeowners to an arborist, and to the county Cooperative Extension office or the NC Forest Service county office. This crew removes trees, trims them, grinds the stumps and does storm work. It does not inspect or assess trees, and it will say so rather than guess.

• Trunk broken, only a few live limbs left: their table says remove
• Trunk broken but several live limbs, no lean, roots undisturbed: their table says the tree should live, with the broken branches and tops taken out
• Leaning under about forty-five degrees with several live limbs: their table says the tree should live
• Blown over one way, trunk sound, but most of the roots out of the ground: their table says remove
• Heavily skinned by flying debris: their table says remove, even standing

The tier changes when the crew comes, not how the job is quoted. Every tree is quoted from a walk-through of that tree, storm or no storm, and the reasoning behind that is on the cost page.

It also does not change what a homeowner should do with a camera. Whatever tier the tree is in, the photographs happen before the saw does, and the documentation checklist is the same list either way.

The tier also says nothing about the next storm. The Davidson County tree calendar sets out what each season here does to trees, one month at a time, and hurricane season in the Piedmont explains what a coastal landfall can still do to trees in the Piedmont.