Storm Damage in Oakland County: Before, During, and After

Updated August 2026 · 24/7 response, call or text 248-672-8058

• Established 2013
• 13+ Years Climbing Experience
• ISA Certified Arborist MI-4857A
• Fully Licensed & Insured

For everyone else, this page is the full storm playbook. What fails and why, exactly what to do in the first hour, what your insurance company will want, and how to keep it from happening twice.

Before the storm: the failures are mostly predictable

Downed trees are the leading cause of power outages across Southeast Michigan, and this county’s weather tests its canopy hard.

The storms of July 3, 2026 left nearly 400,000 Southeast Michigan customers in the dark over the holiday weekend. Gusts ran 60 to 80 mph, with 62 mph recorded at Oakland County International, and trees on lines drove most of the outages.

It says something that Oakland County’s outdoor warning sirens are set to sound for severe thunderstorm winds of 70 mph and up. That is what the mature trees here are periodically asked to survive.

Yet the trees that come down in these storms are rarely random. The usual suspects:

• Dead ash left standing. Trees killed by the emerald ash borer turn brittle within a couple of seasons and are among the first things flying in any wind event.
• Silver maple. Fast-grown and weakly attached, the region’s most reliable shedder of enormous limbs.
• Twin trunks meeting in a tight V. The joint is bark, not wood, which means the trunks were never truly connected. It splits.

Nearly all of it is visible to an arborist a season or two before it fails.

A tree risk assessment looks for exactly these defects, such as basal decay or a cracked fork or deadwood over the driveway. Where one turns up, reducing the tree back to sound side branches usually costs less than the deductible on the roof claim it prevents.

During: the first hour

1. Treat every downed line as live. Never approach a tree touching a wire, and never assume the line lying quietly in the yard is dead. Utility first, always.
2. Get people out from under it. A limb resting on a roof is loaded with tension and can shift without warning, especially while the wind keeps blowing.
3. Photograph everything before anything moves. Wide shots, close-ups, several angles, plus any damage inside the house. Your entire claim will stand on these pictures.
4. Do not start cutting. A loaded limb releases its tension in directions nobody can fully predict. Cutting first is how a damaged roof becomes a destroyed one, and how people get hurt.
5. Call your insurer early, even before you know the full extent. Prompt notice only ever helps you.

After: getting the claim paid

Generally, insurers cover removal when the tree caused damage to a covered structure. The roof, the garage, the fence, or a vehicle under comprehensive auto coverage.

A tree that fell harmlessly in the yard usually is not covered, and neither is removing a tree just because it is dead or unwanted. Policies differ, so read yours.

The honest math on prevention

Storm damage cannot be eliminated, but a lot of it can be scheduled out of existence.

The dead ash comes down on a calm day in January for a planned price, or it comes down through your garage in July at emergency rates plus a deductible.

The weak fork gets a $400 cable this fall, or it gets a $2,000 emergency call and a roofing contractor next summer. Same trees, same outcome for the tree. Very different outcome for you.

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