The morning after: slow is safe, photos are money.
The dangerous hours are after the wind stops — energized lines under debris, cracked limbs hanging quiet, chainsaws in inexperienced hands. Here’s the order that keeps you safe and keeps your claim whole.
Wires, then photos, then patience. The deadly phase of a hurricane is often the cleanup: energized lines hidden under green debris, cracked limbs hanging in quiet canopies, and chainsaws meeting adrenaline. Assume every downed line is live and report it before anything else. Then document everything with your phone before a single cut — dated photos are the currency of every insurance claim.
The order of operations
First, the perimeter walk — from a distance, looking UP as much as down: lines down or sagging, limbs hanging free (“hangers”), new leans, anything on the house. No lines involved and nothing overhead? Then the driveway and access clearing you do yourself stays at ground level, small wood, flat footing — the chainsaw statistics after every Florida storm are written by ladders, spring-loaded limbs and fatigue. Anything overhead, under tension, or on a structure is professional work, not because homeowners aren’t capable, but because storm-loaded wood doesn’t behave like firewood.
The insurance package
Before cleanup: wide shots showing the tree and what it hit, close-ups of damage, the failure point (root plate or break), and a shot that places it all on your property. During: keep receipts for every service. After: our invoices state what failed and what we did — adjusters ask, and the paper trail matters. Florida’s usual rule surprises people: the tree LANDING on your property is generally your policy’s problem regardless of whose yard grew it, with the pointed exception of a known-dead tree an owner ignored — which is one more argument for handling that laurel oak in May.
How triage works when everyone calls at once
Storm week, we work a straight priority list: trees into living spaces, then trees threatening structures or blocking sole access, then leaners and hangers over people-places, then everything else. A clear photo set texted to (727) 761-8618 with your cross-street gets you an honest slot in that line and a real timeframe — and small urgent jobs (a hanger over the driveway) often fit between big ones. What earns nobody a better slot: “my landscaper said it’s fine,” repeated calling, or the crew that appears from three states away offering to start immediately for cash. After every storm, the storm-chaser cleanup stories arrive right behind the storm ones.
Questions Cody hears every week.
What do I photograph for insurance, and when?
Everything, immediately, from safe angles — the tree, what it hit, the root plate or break point, wide shots that show context, close-ups that show damage. Dated photos taken BEFORE any cutting are worth more than any receipt; take them even if you’re sure you won’t file.
A limb is hanging in my tree but nothing's on the ground. Wait or call?
That’s a ‘hanger,’ and it’s the classic after-storm injury-maker — it looks stable until it isn’t. Don’t park, play or work under it. It’s exactly the kind of small fast job we clear a lot of in storm week; send a photo and we’ll slot it honestly by risk.
The tree fell on the fence I share with my neighbor. Whose problem?
In Florida the usual rule is: wherever the tree LANDS is whose insurance handles it, regardless of whose yard it grew in — a healthy tree falling in a storm is treated as an act of nature. A DEAD tree the owner ignored can shift responsibility. Document, notify, be neighborly, and let the adjusters do the arguing.
Tell Cody about your tree.
Three fields. He answers his own phone — you’ll hear back fast.
Faster: text a photo of the tree to (727) 761-8618.