Marsh Bend Trail driver killed by falling tree
 

At this point, I would assume there are multiple media reports. One from WESH TV: 1 dead after tree crushes car on road in Central Florida

As of 12:30, Wildwood police are asking people to stay clear of Marsh Bend Trail and McNeill Drive.

The sheriffs department helicopter and Wesh2 helicopter were both circling that area south of the turnpike shortly before noon. WESH2 had a brief story with video on their noon telecast. That was such a freak, tragic event. Prayers to the family of the victim.

I was heading north from Middleton today right about 12:15 and Community watch was blocking the road north heading into that area. I ended up going over to Sawgrass area instead, but I wondered what had happened.

Odd but I had captured a rotted limb falling off a tree back in March very close to where this incident occurred.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eixILU8PDtQ

Sad. My condolences to his loved ones, neighbors, etc .

Tree
 

Seems odd a good size oak tree would just come down with no storms or nothing like that. Do they transplant trees this size?

Weight, age, disease, heavy rain saturated ground, and Spanish moss. Any old tree with rot internally can come down any time. Rare but happens. IMO Silver maples are even worse, Hugh limbs grow latterly can fall out of them on clear day with no wind. Odds are not going to happen unless severe conditions but it happens. I use to live on Omaha Ne. Happen there with silver maples. Glad I don’t have Hugh oaks in my yard with laterally running limbs weighed down with Spanish moss when rains.

Ground moist but not saturated. Southern area has not been hit with much rain.
Tree did not appear to have any internal rot. Looked like good condition.
Roots seemed shallow, but not excessively.
Winds were a gentle breeze. 1 to 7 mph. No gusts.

Anyone with a tree within falling onto house distance is at risk. No warning, no prediction.

probability of event: minuscule, but non zero

probability that event was random: 99.99999999%

risk is therefore extremely minimal but non zero. I live on a street across from an entire row of live oaks which are exposed to North to East winds, and a hurricane passing on the wrong side of the house can create an increased probability of an event, but not moving nor selling for the risk level.

When your time is up, it's up! random with Parkinson's or driving down the road. . there are no guarantees, and the future is uncertain, sometimes, very uncertain. .

good luck to us!

Very sad story.

Does anyone know who owns the land where the tree was growing?

And was the tree rotten? Healthy trees don’t usually fall

It appears that in Florida,
landowners (private or municipal) can be liable if they knew or should have known about a tree’s dangerous condition and failed to take reasonable steps to mitigate the risk. This applies to trees on private property or in public rights-of-way.

It was on Federal property (Coleman).

Huge live oak, roots look rotted, may have been weakend by hurricanes or road widening.

They are other trees in similar shape along that road (IMHO).

We were just down that road the other day. I see so many roads with huge oak tree limbs hanging out over the road. They all should be cut back. They may look nice but they are a disaster just waiting to happen.

Reminds me of the electric utilities always getting bad PR for wanting to cut back trees off the grid lines. Citizens loose electric due to tree and it’s the utilities fault. Dom of you do and Dom if not.

As is said: The chance of being pecked to death by a flock of ducks is low, but never zero.
No matter how improbable an event is, with a large enough group, the event will happen.

Tree
 

Yea it was his time to go, TV works like the mob, the cleaners came in and wiped the site, it's hard to tell where it even happened. Didn't see anything in the paper about it either (unless I missed it)