Eucalyptus Tree Falls on County Food Bank Building
Photo: Foodbank
Photo: Foodbank
Photo: Foodbank
Photo: Foodbank
By John Palminteri
A large Eucalyptus tree has come down during the overnight powerful winds, crushing the office side of the Food Bank of Santa Barbara County on Hollister Ave. near Goleta.
The refrigerated area is open to supply daily deliveries.
6 Comments
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May 12, 2022 10:25 AM"Timber!!!!"
It was the Spanish that brought the Eucalyptus trees from Australia. They thought these trees would be useful for ship masts. That did not workout at all because they were too weak and not strong enough for bad sea storms. From what I read about many years ago.
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May 11, 2022 10:10 PMOh, this is terrible. I'm gonna pull out my check book again, but I hope people and government take notice of this event. Dammit! LIke helping replace their truck in 2020. At least County might be more agreeable to tree removal than city.
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May 11, 2022 04:23 PMThey certainly are beautiful trees, but they are non-native and invasive. With climate change getting worse and worse, these trees are bound to be falling down and dropping their branches by the thousand or tens of thousands. If you have these on your property, consider cutting it down ASAP, and replace it/them with something native. Back in the 90s (1993) I was camping in the Australian outback (Northern Territory....near Katherine Gorge) when one of these trees fell. Unfortunately, a father and daughter were killed in their tent when it fell upon them. It was awful/awful. Get rid of 'em folks...like yesterday.
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May 12, 2022 08:10 AMIn reality it is the worst weed on the planet.
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May 11, 2022 12:49 PMI don’t care how picturesque these trees are, but they are a non-native invasive species that need to be eradicated. Whether they are gigantic Roman candles during wildfires setting off countless spot fires or when they fall and destroy property and harm people, I don’t like them anymore. They also extract a lot of water that could be better used by plants more suitable to our area. I’m just waiting for the news story when the big old Euc at the Rose Garden falls into those picturesque homes that face the SB Mission. We need to question our relationship with that tree species.
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May 11, 2022 01:51 PMAgreed Shasta. With proper maintenance and pruning we could keep some specimens, but there are an alarming number of long neglected eucalyptus on public property that are disasters waiting to happen. Up in Goleta, some of the eucalyptus groves along the 101 have grown so dense that a man could barely walk between the trunks. This is going to result in a catastrophic fire someday. Perhaps a program could be started to identify hazardous trees and either prune them and start them on a program of regular maintenance to make sure they are safe or remove them and replace them with a more suitable species.