Matthew Higginson's posts

Our necks are cranked up toward the sky. Thirty-two feet overhead, Ryan Kuz reaches out from his small white bucket and calmly brings a chainsaw down on a branch, cutting through until it snaps and gracefully swings away. Caught by the rope he’s secured around it, the massive branch is slowly lowered to the ground where we’re standing. I help the crew from Fairchild TV shimmy out of the way, careful not to slip on the icy interlocking brick of the alley.

Last fall Superstorm Sandy hit the east coast like, in the words of New York Times reporter Lisa W. Foderaro, “a chainsaw on methamphetamines.” Some neighbourhoods lost as much as ninety per cent of their urban forest. And as Sandy passed over the five Boroughs of New York City, 8,500 trees fell and many more were left with damaged limbs. The loss, the mess and the flooding upset crucial watersheds, and threatened the public's water supply. But before the winds had even died down, residents, rescue teams and even a few Canadians were already working to restore order to the chaos.