The University of Mississippi has experienced several inches of rain and strong winds throughout the past few weeks. As a result of this bad weather, multiple trees fell on April 10 and 11 on the UM campus: two in the Grove, one near the Chancellor’s House and one outside the UM Law Center.
The most significant incident occurred in the afternoon of April 11, when a 107-year-old oak tree uprooted in the Grove and fell across the Ole Miss Student Union Plaza. The tree crushed numerous light and banner poles, but none of the students walking on the plaza were injured.
UM Landscape Services reported the ancient oak that keeled over near the union and another giant tree that uprooted in the middle of the Grove fell due to oversaturation from heavy rainfall.
The other fallen trees on campus are thought to have succumbed for similar reasons.
Assistant Director of UM Landscaping Nathan Lazinsky explained why trees fall in such situations.
“The soil swells up, and it gets to where the tree is almost floating in water, and when you have wind on top of that, that’s where you have failures,” Lazinsky said. “If you think about how the wind blows, it’s pulling the oversaturated roots right out of the ground.”
Factors other than weather are also at play. The Grove attracts people for football game tailgating, graduation ceremonies, concerts, studying, impromptu games and events.
Director of UM Landscape Services Jeff McManus said that foot traffic from people gathering in the Grove leads to compaction on tree roots over time, which results in less aerification –– the process of filling the soil and roots with air.
“Any time you have compaction on tree roots, it’s not good for the trees,” McManus said. “We have all of us walking on (the Grove) over and over, and now you don’t have that aerification.”
Lazinsky echoed McManus’ comments about how the university tries to mitigate compaction.
“Soil compaction is a major deal. (UM landscaping) goes through to try to mitigate (the damage) through radial trenching, which is when we excavate the soil with air and try to mitigate that compaction,” Lazinsky said. “Compaction is the silent killer.”
The population in the Groveincreases dramatically when the Ole Miss Football season is in full swing. Approximately 50,000 fans congregate in the Grove each home game weekend, according to the Tailgate Group.
“Despite the recent fallen trees on campus due to heavy rains (four to six inches) and severe winds, tailgating in the Grove and Circle will proceed as usual in the fall,” McManus said.
UM Landscaping Supervisor Thomas Dickerson said that in addition to efforts to help alleviate compaction, his crews continually monitor university trees and complete maintenance work every year.
“We have people come trim and clean the limbs out of them, and we do keep an eye on them. So we’ll just keep doing the same thing we’re doing,” Dickerson said.
McManus said that the university is continuing to keep a close watch on campus trees in order to keep trees from falling.
“We try to mitigate (trees falling) by continually monitoring the trees,” McManus said. “We also have a maintenance program that’s constantly trimming, cleaning (and) looking for problems and issues, especially on the Grove and in the Circle. We hire companies to come in and help us do that, and we’ve had very few trees in the Grove go down over the last two to three years.”
Students were surprised at the number of fallen trees recently but expressed minimal concern for safety going forward.
Junior business management major Hannah Hopson found out about the incident through social media.
“I did not know the tree actually fell until I saw a photo on Snapchat,” Hopson said. “It was concerning, but it wasn’t my main concern at the time.”
Junior business major Worth Duperier expressed similar feelings toward falling trees.
“I think the weather has been really bad,” Duperier said. “It’s been really windy recently, and the trees have been falling around Oxford. I don’t think it’s a main concern, but it’s definitely something to look out for.”
