Severn Tree Removal runs emergency tree removal for Severn, MD and surrounding cities including Fort Meade, Jessup, Elkridge, Odenton and Glen Burnie, with a 24-hour response for storm damage, fallen trees and trees resting on a structure, backed by more than 20 years of storm seasons on this ground.
An emergency removal is a different operation from a scheduled one and it is worth understanding why before you need it. The tree is already where it should not be, it is usually holding load against something, and nobody has assessed the site. The first job is not cutting; it is working out what is under tension, what is bearing weight, and what moves when the first cut is made.
The other difference is that we will tell you when we are not coming out yet. Maryland’s own tree care and removal safety standard, COMAR 09.12.28, requires work to stop when the forecast calls for imminent hazardous weather, and the second cell of a storm is when crews get hurt. A company promising to work through a warning is telling you something about how it runs every other job too.
What To Do Before We Arrive
Clear the Rooms Under the Trunk
If a tree is on the house, move people and pets out of the rooms beneath the point of contact and stay out of them. A trunk resting on a roof is holding load through a structure that was not designed for it, and the failure that matters is the ceiling coming down rather than the tree moving. Everything else, including the roof itself, can wait.
Utilities, Panels and Standing Water
Shut off gas and power to the damaged part of the house if the panel is safe and dry to reach, and do not go near standing water in a room where wiring has been disturbed. If a line is down anywhere on the property, treat every wire, fence and puddle near it as energized until BGE says otherwise.
Photograph It Before Anything Moves
Photograph the tree where it landed, the point of contact, and the interior damage before a saw touches anything. Carriers settle on what can be shown, and a yard that has already been cleaned up is a harder claim than a documented one even when the loss is identical. Keep the written estimate too — it names the tree and the work.
Who To Call, In Which Order
A tree or limb on an energized line is BGE’s call first and ours second; nothing on our side begins until the line is cleared or de-energized. A tree blocking a public road goes to the county or the state highway authority. Everything else on private property starts with us and your carrier, in that order.
Trees on Structures and Under Load
Reading the Load Before Cutting
A tree lying across a roof, a fence or a car is a beam under tension and compression, and cutting it in the wrong order releases that stored energy all at once. We work out where the bind is, relieve it in stages, and take weight off the structure before anything is severed near the contact point. This is the whole reason the job is priced differently from a standing removal.
Sectional Dismantling Away From the House
Where a tree is against a structure, sections come off in a sequence chosen so each piece travels away from the building rather than through it. Rigging lines, lowering devices and a groundcrew running them are what make that possible, and it is slower than felling by design. Speed on this kind of job is how the second piece of damage happens.
Crane Picks Where There Is No Drop Zone
Some yards have nowhere to put a tree at all. A crane lifts each section straight up and swings it clear of the roof, the pool or a neighbor’s fence, and nothing is rigged that cannot be controlled. It costs more per hour and frequently less per job, because the work is measured in picks rather than days of dismantling.
Windthrow, Lifted Root Plates and Standing Hazards
On the deep sandy soils here, large trees develop broad shallow root plates and a straight-line wind event uproots them rather than snapping the trunk. A plate that lifted slightly without dropping the tree is the most under-recognized hazard after a storm, so we walk the rest of the property while the crew is on site rather than leaving it for a return visit.
Debris, Cleanup and Who Is Responsible
What the County Will Not Take
Anne Arundel curbside collection takes limbs only under 4 feet by 4 inches, in bundles under 40 pounds, and will not collect logs at all. That is the gap most storm quotes fall into. Residents hauling debris themselves in most private vehicles are not charged at the county facility, which is a genuine cost saving where somebody has a truck and the time.
What BGE Does and Does Not Do
BGE clears its own lines and will cut a tree away from a conductor, but it is not responsible for removing the wood debris that cut produces. Trees needing utility attention have to be marked and run on BGE’s own schedule, commonly a matter of weeks. The wood left in the yard afterward is the homeowner’s, and it is regularly the reason people call us second.
Full Cleanup Versus Make-Safe
There are two legitimate scopes after a storm and they cost very different amounts. Make-safe stabilizes the situation — the tree off the structure, the hazard down, the driveway open — and stops there. Full cleanup chips the brush, removes the rounds and rakes the site out. We quote them separately so you can choose one now and one later.
Insurance, Sublimits and Per-Event Limits
The Maryland Insurance Administration puts the debris removal sublimit usually between $500 and $1,000, paid whether the tree damaged an insured structure or just fell in the yard, and states that the amount is typically based on the event rather than the number of trees that fall. On a storm that drops three trees, that distinction is most of the settlement.
How Emergency Work Is Priced and Scheduled
Why After-Hours Costs More
A scheduled removal is planned around crew availability, equipment and daylight. An after-hours call is none of those: it pulls a crew off rest, works under lights, and deals with damage nobody has assessed. We price the two differently and say which one you are getting before we roll, rather than quoting a daytime rate and adjusting the invoice later.
Triage When Several Calls Land at Once
After a significant wind event more people need us than we can reach in an hour, so calls are ordered by hazard rather than by who called first. A tree through an occupied roof outranks a tree across a driveway, and we say honestly where you sit in that order instead of promising an arrival time we already know we cannot keep.
Standing Hazards Found During Cleanup
Storms expose defects rather than creating all of them. Split leaders, co-dominant stems with included bark, a new lean, deadwood shaken loose in the crown — these get identified while we are on site and quoted separately, because they are cheapest to deal with while the crew, the chipper and the access are already there.
Documentation You Can Hand to an Adjuster
Our estimates name the tree, the work and the date, which is the form an adjuster can act on. Where a claim is in play we photograph what we find before we start and describe the failure in plain terms, so the claim rests on a record made at the time rather than a reconstruction after the yard is clear.
- 20+ Years in Anne Arundel County
- Free On-Site Estimates
- 24-Hour Storm Response