Gallery • 5 Photos

Hailey Echan

Trees have fallen on campus every year for the last three years.

At approximately 10 p.m. on Jan. 12, a tree next to the Student Union Building fell over, destroying the sidewalk nearest to the SUB and making all walkways near the Bertona and 3rd avenue west intersections unwalkable. The Office of Safety and Security was on the scene immediately and taped off the area to keep people out. Nobody was injured.

Third year Parker Charles witnessed the tree falling.

“I was like in the gateway to Tiffany Loop with some friends… and then there was thunder, and the tree just fell,” Parker explained. “We heard the thunder, looked over, and it was probably one quarter of the way fallen already, so we saw the last three quarters of it falling.”

Third year Jonathan Hacker was on his way to meet up with Charles when the tree started falling towards his direction.

“I was on the other side of the street about to cross and I heard the sound and I looked over to the right,” Hacker recounted. “I saw the tree that fell just crack in half and like splinter and a piece fell off of it, and then it fell towards me.”

Third Year Ethan Meyer was also part of the group that saw the tree fall. He said it was a surreal experience.

“The excitement of having a tree fall in front of you when you think about how many times a tree falls of natural occurrences… the fact that it’s right in front of you specifically is not going to happen that often so that was just super exciting.” Meyer recounted.

Meyer continued to explain how three different trees have fallen in his three years at SPU. One near Demaray his first year and the one that damaged the SUB last year on January 31.

The tree that fell last year caused extensive damage to the Student Union Building that led to months of repairs, which did not finish until weeks into the 2020 Autumn quarter.

After the tree that damaged the SUB last year was cleaned up, SPU brought in an arborist to examine trees around the SPU campus and decide which were at high risk of falling with hopes of avoiding a future tree falling incident.

Both trees fell during regional weather advisories. In 2020, the advisory was for heavy wind, this year it was for heavy rainfall.

The same heavy rainfall that caused the tree to fall also led to power outages across campus, including in Emerson, Arnett, and Hill Halls.

The Falcon has reached out to Head of facilities Dave Church for comment on the upcoming clean up process as well as the power outages