The day a rotted stump in Portland nearly took my truck out

Back in 2012 I was grinding a big oak stump in a tight backyard near Hawthorne. I had the machine angled wrong and the stump was way more rotten than I thought. Whole thing gave way and the truck nearly slid into a 4 foot hole. I spent the next 3 hours hauling gravel to fill it in before the homeowner got back. Has anyone else had a stump just cave in like that on them?

3 comments

3 Comments

ruby_patel2721d agoMost Upvoted

Rotten stumps are the worst, they hide all their decay underground until it's too late (found that out the hard way myself).

garcia.laura21d ago

yep exactly, the outside can look totally fine while the inside is basically compost. my neighbor lost a whole maple that way last spring, looked healthy until it just dropped a huge limb on his car.

william_carter18d ago

That's rough about the car. Reminds me of the time a neighbor's old oak dropped a branch on their fence during a quiet summer afternoon with no wind at all. Turned out the whole center was hollowed out by rot, just looked fine from the street.