Call for Action team works to remove a dangerous tree

(WXYZ) - Every time the thunder crackles, the lightning flashes and the rain comes pouring down, 55-year-old Robby Stern of Southfield says a silent prayer- a prayer that a old, dead tree poised right over his house doesn’t come crashing down on his house.

It’s happened once already when another huge 100-year-old tree smashed into his family’s home on the first day of 2012.

Robby has a lot to worry about because inside his tiny home he is helping to raise 4 children and 2 grandchildren, including his grandson Nathan who is only 11-months-old.

But cutting down the old tree is tougher than it looks. 

You see, most of this tree has grown around DTE Energy power lines and there isn’t a professional tree trimming company around that will risk cutting down the monster tree until DTE cuts away all of the entangled branches.

Worse still, out of work for several years now, Robby can’t possibly afford to hire anyone to cut this tree down.

So, Robby called the Call for Action team.

Today, I called DTE Energy’s Chief Security Officer Michael Lynch for help.

Mike promised to get that tree taken care of quickly, and less than 3-hours later a DTE Energy tree crew was on the scene carefully cutting away all of the dangerous limbs wrapped around those powerful power lines.

All of which means that thanks to Mike and DTE Energy the first big part of removing this dangerous dead tree has already been accomplished.

In the next few days, I’ll be looking for a tree trimming company to volunteer to cut the rest of that dead tree down.

If you think you’d like to help us with that, please email me at bspencer@wxyz.com .