An exploding tree is a police matter?
Technically speaking, isn’t the tree the source of the lightning bolt and so it got everything it damn well deserved?
This is probably just a police officer taking initiative to make sure kids and adults don’t get hurt until one of the city departments comes and cleans it up. I don’t see anything wrong with that.
How does a flimsy sheet of plastic protect anyone? It literally does nothing to make the area safer except for creating a line that you’re maybe not supposed to cross because a cop might yell at you.
Simple. Because there are lot of dumb-ass people (and kids) that WILL mess around the tree and possibly get hurt, but will refrain simply because the tape is there.
Josh
Three reasons:
- It is highly visible and it causes people to stop and think before crossing,
- Most people are used to seeing hazards blocked off and won’t cross, and
- People are so used to seeing hazards blocked off that they assume that when a hazard hasn’t been blocked off that it is safe (for example, people will walk right on by wet floors and steam plumes if they aren’t marked).
I’ve taped off more than my share of hazards. The more obvious you make it, the less likely people will fuck with it.
Yup. An exploding anything is a police matter, til it’s figured out what it is, and why and whether or not it’s gonna keep exploding, IMO.
(providing it’s sensible police, natch)
I’d be all over the branches still attached; back with a saw to take home.
Lightening can sculpt in ways that hardly can be duplicated.
Except for that damn tape! Foiled!
I see the lightning police are on the scene. Watch out Zeus.
Lightning may be destructive, but also quite considerate: Note the neatly stacked cordwood!
Weird lightning strikes, eh? Well I’m pretty sure we all know what that means…
It’s cooler if you think of it as the tree gathering charge from the roots and then exploding in the process of shooting it to the sky. I wonder if the soil underneath was affected. The heat can sometimes produce cool glass.
Public protection is a police matter. The above comment was a typo , cant seem too erase it.
I have seen a tree hit by lightning, it was cut down about 6 feet from the ground. Its bark was warm and full of ooze from the tree, splintered looking it exploded from within, which it did.
Officers were only doing their job taping off the scene.
obviously terrorist lightning…
like this recent attack:
http://cdn.newsoxy.com/2013/06/lightning-hits-plane.jpg
I think the only rational response is to start a war on the climate…oh wait we already have! 
It was a setup by the ground, the tree is innocent.
Stephen Fry on QI talking about lightning strikes, including the bit about why you shouldn’t stand under a tree in a storm…
Excellent kindling. Beats swinging a splitting maul.
Legal liability. The tape serves as an official warning. If somebody is dumb enough to disregard the warning and then cuts or punctures themselves on tree shrapnel, they can’t sue the city or the property owner because now that’s their own damned fault.
Litigious societies, etc.
Hmm…That wood be shocking to witness.
