Jackson Square will reopen to the public on Tuesday, four days after a branch of a live oak tree fell on top of a teenager.
On Monday, city officials issued a press release saying the Department of Parks and Parkways removed the remaining trunk and all debris from the tree earlier in the day. The release also said arborists performed an initial assessment on the remaining trees in Jackson Square. However, the release did not say if that assessment found any problems with those trees.
According to a WWL-TV report, another limb from that oak tree fell on June 27, more than a week before the incident that left the teen in the hospital with critical injuries. City officials told the television station that they inspected the tree after that first limb tumbled to the ground.
In a statement, city officials said:
“The mature live oak was inspected by Parks and Parkways arborists on June 27 while performing clean up to remove a large failed limb (referred to as a leader). The tree was again inspected on June 28. The determination then was made to perform additional pruning on a smaller dead limb and reevaluate the health and balance of the tree once specialized equipment was made available to access the square. When an immediate risk for failure is observed through arborist inspection, a tree is removed immediately. Our arborists concluded, based on the two remaining sections of the tree, that there was not an elevated risk of additional large limb or whole tree failure,”
However, an independent arborist brought to the site by WWL-TV said the tree was rotten on the inside. He said that and other factors led to Friday’s incident.
