Mid-Michigan gets the full menu of bad weather. Summer thunderstorms with 60 mph straight-line winds. Winter ice storms that coat every branch in a quarter inch of glass. The occasional tornado warning. Lake-effect snow loads that bury low limbs. We've worked through every one of them, and we know what a storm-damaged tree looks like when you're staring at it from the kitchen window at 11 pm.

If you're reading this because something just happened at your house, here's what to do.

Right Now: What to Do First

  1. Get away from the tree. Don't stand under it, don't go inspect it from the ground at night, and especially don't try to clear branches yourself. Hung-up limbs (broken pieces still hanging in the canopy) come down without warning. People get killed by these every year in Michigan.
  2. If a wire is involved, stay 30 feet away and call the Lansing Board of Water & Light or Consumers Energy. Even if it looks like a small line. Tree work near energized wires is for the utility, not for us, and definitely not for you.
  3. Take pictures from a safe distance. Your insurance will want them. Wide shots and close-ups, before any cleanup starts.
  4. Call us. (517) 657-4080. We can usually get to your property within two hours during normal storm events. After massive multi-county events, it might be 6 to 24 hours, but we triage the most dangerous situations first.

What We Handle on Emergency Calls

Trees on houses, garages, and outbuildings. The biggest emergency we get. We secure the area, set up rigging, and remove the tree without making the structural damage worse. Crane work is often the right call here.

Trees blocking driveways and roads. Common after a derecho or ice event. We cut the tree into manageable pieces and clear the access. If we're working in the street, we coordinate with Lansing Public Service and put out cones.

Hung-up limbs and split trunks. A tree that's split but still partially standing is more dangerous than one that's already down. We use rigging to control the descent and prevent secondary damage.

Trees against power lines. If a tree is just touching a wire, we coordinate with the utility before doing anything. If a wire is broken or arcing, that's a utility job until they de-energize.

Damaged trees that haven't fallen yet. A tree with a fresh crack in the trunk, a leaning tree after a saturated rain, a partially uprooted tree in the windbreak. These are time-sensitive but not always immediate. We can usually triage these within a day.

Common Storm Scenarios in the Lansing Metro

Ice Storms

Ice storms have hit the Lansing area hard, and they're the worst kind of damage to clean up. Glaze ice doubles or triples the weight of every branch, and species with brittle wood (silver maple, bradford pear, willow) shed limbs by the truckload. Once the ice melts, we get a flood of calls because branches that looked frozen in place suddenly drop. The cleanup window after an ice event runs about 7 to 14 days.

Summer Wind Events and Derechos

Mid-Michigan sits in the path of derecho-style storms that come off Lake Michigan and intensify across the state. Straight-line winds in the 60 to 90 mph range snap trunks, uproot shallow-rooted trees, and tear off limbs. Silver maples are the species we remove most often after wind events.

Heavy Snow Load

Wet, heavy snow can break out the leaders on conifers and bend young trees into the ground. We get a wave of calls every February or early March when the heavy stuff comes down. Sometimes the tree recovers, sometimes it doesn't. We'll evaluate.

Saturated Soil and Toppling

After a stretch of heavy rain, the clay soils around Lansing get fully saturated. Mature trees with shallow root plates (especially silver maple, willow, and ash) can topple in a moderate wind that wouldn't have phased them in dry conditions. If you've got a big tree leaning a different direction than it was last week, call us before the next windstorm.

Insurance Tips

Most homeowner policies cover the cost of removing a tree from a structure if it caused damage. They typically do not cover removal of a tree that fell in your yard but didn't hit anything. We can write itemized invoices that match what your insurance company is asking for, and we work directly with adjusters all the time. Take photos before any cleanup.

Pricing for Emergency Work

Emergency calls run higher than scheduled work, for obvious reasons (after-hours labor, urgent mobilization, often more dangerous conditions). A tree-on-house emergency that requires crane work and structural coordination can run $2,500 to $6,000 depending on size and complexity. A tree-across-driveway clearing during normal hours might be $400 to $900.

For active emergencies we give you a price before we start, in writing, so you know what you're agreeing to. We don't take advantage of stressful situations. Same flat-rate model as scheduled jobs, just with a storm-call premium.

Why Local Matters After a Storm

After a major storm, out-of-state crews often roll into Michigan and door-knock. Some are fine. A lot are not. They show up without insurance, they don't know local utility coordination, they overcharge, and they're 1,200 miles away if anything goes wrong with the work. We live here. We're going to be answering the phone next week, next month, and next year. If you ever have a problem, you can find us.

FAQ: Emergency Tree Service in Lansing

Normal storm response, two hours or less. Major regional event with hundreds of calls, 6 to 24 hours depending on triage. We always tell you a realistic ETA when you call.

Yes. We provide itemized invoices, photo documentation, and direct communication with your adjuster. Many of our jobs are paid through homeowners coverage.

Call your utility first (Lansing Board of Water & Light or Consumers Energy). They have to de-energize before we can work near the wire. We can clear everything else in the meantime.

Yes, that's a normal sequence. Get the immediate hazard off the house, tarp the roof if needed, then return for full cleanup once you've got an adjuster scheduled.

For genuine emergencies (tree on house, blocking emergency access), yes. For non-urgent storm cleanup, we wait for daylight. Tree work after dark is dangerous and we don't do it for clean-up jobs.