On the night of Saturday, May nine, and in the early morning of Sunday, May ten, have left many yards littered with fallen branches, and in some cases, entire trees. After weeks of no snow, trees had been devastated by the sudden dumping of the heavy, wet snow that hit them. The reason that they had been hit so hard by the sudden rush of snow, is because after being allowed to grow and flourish, the new leaves held onto the snow a lot better than just bare branches would have, making them too heavy to stay up, and in many cases, causing them to break off completely.

The school’s trees were affected as well. According to Doug Blue, head of the schools grounds keeping department, there was definite damages done to the schools trees from the snow.

“Most of the damage was done to the school’s cottonwood trees, in the form of branches holding too much snow, becoming heavy, and breaking off.” Blue said.

While the damage was minimal, it was worse for other schools in the area.

“The worst part of the tree damage in the district is right around here, right around Smoky Hill. Penance Elementary got hit pretty hard. Down by Indian Ridge, the green belt around there was hit pretty hard.” Blue said

However, nothing was permanent.

“What we have to do is dress the wounds of the tree, which means, what we do is cut the splintered branches off close to the trunk and cover the wound with a treatment that prevents bugs from getting into the sap and causing the trees to get diseased.” Blue said

The school was not damaged.
“The school’s roof had just been worked on… I think it was last year, yeah, so their should not be any damage, at least nothing major, to the actual school” Blue said.