THE REDWOOD TREE

 

The Redwood Tree

In my early professional career I was a civilian employee of the Corps of Engineers out of the Boston office. It was not unusual to have Corps offices request personnel assistance when an emergency situation arose. That was the case in 1965 when the state of California experienced the worst flooding in the North part of the State. Whole communities were wiped away by the floods, thousands of cattle lost, acres of agricultural land gone, roads and bridges severely damaged, thousands of logs uprooted from the mills and worst of all 30 lives were lost. Governor Pat Brown called the floods ”the thousand year storm.”

Five of us volunteered to help assist in assessing the damage. We spent a week in San Francisco getting briefed and receiving our assignments. About 3 weeks into the survey my 2 member team got an unusual call. We were to go into the National Forest and find out if the tallest redwood tree in California (really the world) was still standing. We drove into the forest as far as we could, grabbed our snake bite kits and hiked our way in. We eventually found it and it was just fine. Standing 350 feet tall it was absolutely magnificent. How did we know we had the right tree---the Forest Service had a huge sign at its base saying so.

In 2006 a giant sequoia (redwood tree) was found to be taller measuring 380 feet high. In 2022 the Forest Service closed it down to hikers since degradation and erosion of the tree were evident. If found near the tree you will be fined 5000 dollars. If you are ever in San Francisco visit a redwood state park and see one for yourself. You won’t be disappointed