Letter: Hilton Head still has too many trees

Too many trees!!

I rode out the storm, questionably, with two friends in a villa I own across the street from the ocean and we then spent most of the next day wading, climbing, and zigzagging through the devastation of Long Cove checking on homes.

As such, we became the first visual responders, so to speak, of the immense damage and eventually heartache that was caused by the overabundance of trees, especially pine trees.

The “tree lovers” on this island have to back off and our leaders have to start a major effort in thinning this island of the million pine trees that now have caused us all so much expense, stress and misery.

Even before Matthew, you couldn’t even see the ocean from supposed oceanfront or near-ocean properties. And the health of the pines suffers as they become top heavy because they are so crowded together. With heavy rain, they become like metal rods buried in jello.

My feeling is we need to put new, costly art centers and college campuses on the back burner and devote money toward thinning this island of the way, way too many pines.

We will soon see how much open and brighter this island will now be as Mother Nature has done her pruning of this island, and now we need to do the rest.

This story was originally published October 17, 2016 at 6:20 PM with the headline "Letter: Hilton Head still has too many trees."