A giant Grove tree fell on the sidewalk in front of Gertrude C. Ford Ole Miss Student Union at approximately 12:50 p.m. on Thursday, April 11. This is at least the third towering tree to fall on the University of Mississippi campus in the last two days.
Bystanders reported that one student was almost hit by the tree, but no students were injured.
Freshman film production major Zack Byrd witnessed the tree fall.
“We were walking down the Walk of Champions, like right at the end of it, and we started to hear crackling,” Byrd said. “This girl was walking and we started to hear her scream and other people scream because we were watching this big tree just start to fall over. She was fine, luckily, because she heard it and ran out of the way.”
After also hearing the tree begin to fall, senior international studies major Alex Shelton called out for those on their campus commute to get out of the way.
“I was in the union eating lunch, and then I (started) walking to class. I saw the ground start coming up, and there were a couple of girls standing underneath the tree. So I told them to run,” Shelton said.
It took around two or three minutes for UM Landscape Services to arrive on scene alongside the University Police Department, Byrd said. Thomas Dickerson, who serves as a supervisor for Landscape Services, said that it could take from a day to a week for all of the debris to be cleared from the Union Plaza.
On Wednesday, April 10, at least two other trees fell – one in the Grove and one Carrier House, the chancellor’s residence. On April 11, a tree near the Lyceum split causing part of it to collapse.
Dickerson offered an explanation as to why so many trees have been falling on campus recently.
“It looks like it’s from too much rain saturation, plus probably the wind that we’ve had. Otherwise, that’s all we pretty much know at this point,” Dickerson said.
Heavy rains have pummeled the Oxford area during the past four days.
Jacob Batte of UMPR commented on the recent string of fallen trees.
“The trees uprooting on campus is an unfortunate result of heavy rains and high winds that campus has seen in recent days. Landscape services is working with the arborists and Green Groves to inspect the trees in the Grove and Circle for any that are in danger of falling over,” Batte said.
The tree that fell near the student union took out a light pole and banner polse on its way down.
“I was in the Barnes and Noble Cafe, and my back was turned,” Ryan Krance, a graduate student studying education, said. “People started to turn around, so I turned around. The tree was slowly falling. There’s a crash and it sounds like someone crashed a car into the concrete. Then the tree came down and took out those poles right there with all the banners and stuff on it.”
The fallen tree also took down plans for several organizations that had events planned on campus. Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. was planning to host Union Unplugged, which is a monthly event at the Union Plaza. This event, a celebration of AKA Week, was canceled because of the tree damage.
Alpha Omicron Pi has been tabling this week near the spot where the tree fell to promote their 5K philanthropy event Run for the Roses but canceled earlier today because of the weather.
“(I’m) very thankful that we canceled tabling today, because if not, I would have been crushed there,” Anika Ravi, a freshman public policy leadership and public health double major, said.
