In Brick City, a mature street tree over a rowhouse can't wait for daylight.

Newark packs some of New Jersey's oldest housing stock under a surprisingly full canopy — the stately oaks and maples that line Forest Hill's Victorian streets, the tight blocks of the Ironbound, and the parkland threading Weequahic and Branch Brook. Beautiful shade in July, and a real hazard when a storm loads those limbs over slate roofs and parked cars.

Wind funnels hard off Newark Bay and up the Passaic River corridor, and wet nor'easter snow piles onto trees rooted in compacted, decades-old city soil. When a limb lets go here, it usually lands on a car, a service drop, or the house next door. The National Weather Service New York (OKX) office tracks the wind and coastal-storm events that drive those failures.

Our crews work Newark end to end — from the North Ward down through the Central and South Wards to the Ironbound — reaching most emergencies fast even when blocks are dark and side streets are boxed in by double-parked cars.