The Storm Elm

The Columbus Day Storm of 1962 flattened roughly 15 billion board feet of Pacific Northwest timber and gusted to 116mph over Portland. On the north side of this block, one elm was left standing. That is this tree, planted in 1902 or 1903 in the planting strip on NW Flanders St. It is around 24.4 metres tall with a trunk 4.30 metres around, and it went onto the Heritage Tree register as number 36 in 1994. The city's own field guide is blunt about the odds: getting through that night at all was no small thing for a mature elm on an exposed street. The storm was not the end of the threat. Dutch elm disease arrived later, carried by a bark beetle that reached North America from Asia by way of Europe, and a smaller elm on the same block was lost to it. The elms still standing here, this one included, are now inoculated against the fungus by the city and by volunteers. Look across the street while you are here. The Rockey Elm came through the same night and then had to be defended from a removal permit the following year. Two trees, one block, and one decade that tried twice to take them.