Emergency & Storm Tree Service — Spokane
Spokane knows what a real windstorm does now. December’s event — 71 mph gusts, the largest outage in Avista’s history, roughly 71,600 customers dark across 916 separate incidents, and two lives lost — rewrote the local definition of “bad storm.” When the next one comes, the first hour matters more than the phone call.
Before you call anyone
Power lines first. If the tree is on a line, near a downed line, or touching anything that touches a line — stay clear and call Avista (or Inland Power, or Modern Electric in the Valley) before any tree company. Energized trees kill; no crew touches one until the utility clears it.
Tree on the house: everyone out from under the damaged section, nobody on the roof, photos from the ground. Insurance wants the tree exactly as it landed.
Blocking the driveway, hitting nothing: urgent, not emergency. It gets sequenced behind the trees on structures — that’s how honest triage works, and it’s how it’ll work when you’re the one with the tree on the roof.
How storm response runs here
Structures first, access second, hangers and leaners third, cleanup last. The half-fallen tree that “seems stable” outranks the one already on the ground — a partially uprooted tree is a loaded spring, and Spokane’s saturated-winter-soil failures come in pairs: the first gust tips it, the second finishes it.
The December event also taught the queue lesson: every tree company in the county ran flat-out for weeks. Sites like this one exist so your call routes to crews with capacity instead of a full voicemail box.
Insurance, briefly
Homeowner policies generally cover removal when the tree hit a covered structure; a tree that fell in the yard and hit nothing is often excluded or capped. Photograph before cleanup, keep receipts, tarp fast — temporary protection is usually covered and expected. Your adjuster will want the documentation this page just told you to make.
After the wind
Post-storm is exactly when the next failures are visible — cracked leaders that held, neighbors’ pines newly aimed at your shop. Get a hazard assessment while the evidence is fresh.
Storm damage now? Call (509) 300-4295.