What's needed to visit friends less than 5 miles away?

[papaof2]

Sunday evening, the wife and I were visiting friends and had both vehicles because we'd lunched with different groups (not unusual, but we will have supper together with yet another group Christmas Eve). We left their house around 8PM but when I backed my wife's SUV down the slightly curving driveway (note who gets to do the difficult vehicle moves after dark ;-), I found myself parking that vehicle at the end of the driveway to go investigate the cluster of people in the street.

We've had a higher than usual amount of rain this year and this month. That took its toll on a tree at the next house up from our friends - the road was blocked. A neighbor on the other side of the street said "I think you can get out if you drive through my yard". I might take my truck through the just-barely-wide-enough gap between the mailbox and the crepe myrtle but my wife won't take her somewhat newer vehicle through the possibility of that much scratching.

Someone says "I called the County and they'll send someone." The other neighbors are still moaning "What to do? What to do?"

I tell one of them to move the VW by the "drive through my yard" driveway and I head for my truck. I lift the folded-down not-quite-a-back-seat and get out the 10,000lb rated 20 foot nylon tow strap (that I've used multiple times - but never for towing a vehicle). Then I do a three point turn on that driveway to get the truck aimed through the gap between that mailbox and tree and pull through to the open side of the road. I tell two guys to connect one end of the tow cable to the downed tree, about 6 feet from the top end, while I tie the other end of the cable to the 2" ball on the back of the truck.

The pavement is a little damp (we had more rain today) and there's scattered "stuff" on the road from the fallen tree, so traction isn't the best. The truck is two wheel drive and the bed is empty (easier to move a tree if there's good weight over the rear wheels). The tree is about 6" in diameter at the top and gets a bigger as it gets closer to the root end. (1. I didn't measure the root end. 2. The tree obviously hit something [Another tree?] on its way down to have broken that much off.)

Is it even worth trying to move the tree with my little truck with a 4 cylinder engine?

Of course. In three moves, changing the position of the truck each time - and with only a little burned rubber (less of that as I got out of the tree's debris field) - I swung the top of the tree enough to open up about 8 feet of road, which is a reasonable single lane.

Probably didn't take more than 15 - 20 minutes but the tree's owner was asking "What do I owe you?"

Nothing. I'm just trying to get my wife and her vehicle home.

The County will eventually send out a crew to clear a blocked road but I'd expect the response time on Sunday evening two days before Christmas to be measured in hours :-(

So what was needed?

Truck.
Trailer hitch and ball.
Tow cable.
Flashlights.
Gloves.
Knowing how big my vehicle is.
Understanding the geometry and physics needed to be in the right places to move the tree in an arc.

All of this just to get home from a trip of less than 5 miles on paved roads.

A half dozen people were wringing their hands about part of a dead end street being blocked for an hour and some people don't think there could be a SHTF situation if power is off or fuel delivery is disrupted for a week...

[gipsy]

Kind of iffie to hang it on the ball, better to install a clevis or have one to replace the ball in your hitch.

[papaof2]

This is the ball in the bumper, rated for 2000lbs. Knotting the tow cable around the ball pulls it into the curve where the ungreased ball meets the bumper and the final load limit is whatever the bumper structure can handle. That's also the highest place on the vehicle to connect the cable and any "up" on the cable is a good thing when moving a tree.

Had I been within walking distance of home, I might've gotten out the chain saw and taken off a 3" lower limb that eventually dug itself into the guy's yard. That would have made things a little easier. With the chainsaw, I might also have cut 6' sections and pulled each of them to the side of the road separately. Considering that I had only planned to travel on paved roads, I had "enough" for the situation. Had I not been able to swing the tree, our friends do have a spare bedroom and we had the two "in town" GHB's - each with a lightweight sleeping bag, food for a day, a LifeStraw, etc (lots of etc ;-)

There's a frame-mount 2" 3500lb receiver hitch in the garage; just waiting for a dry and somewhat warmer day before I get under the truck to mount it. However, I can see no misalignment of the bumper with the sheet metal so the load I attempted was within the capabilities of the bumper - and the load was limited by the traction between the tires and the less-than-perfect pavement.