Videos and images after the last storm showed the road disappear—mud, trees, and broken pavement piled where cars should be passing. The slope didn’t just erode; it gave way, sending whole sections downhill and cutting neighbors off overnight. You’ve seen the photos too—homes torn from their foundations, drifting like debris in swollen rivers below. This isn’t abstract risk or distant tragedy. When trees are stripped from hillsides, rain doesn’t just fall, it mobilizes the land itself, turning roads into dead ends and houses into wreckage carried by erosion’s current.

We need to stop talking about trees like they’re just pretty backdrops or optional lawn ornaments. In a community with some homes  built on sand and slopes like ours, those trees are the only thing keeping your driveway from becoming a downstream neighbor’s problem.

Think about it. Our soil—mostly sand and loose grit—has zero “glue.” It doesn’t stick. It just waits for an excuse to move. Tree roots are the rebar in our natural concrete. They’re a living, breathing web that anchors the earth. When we rip them out for a better view or a bigger footprint, we aren’t just “clearing land.” We’re pulling the stitches out of a hillside.

Look at what happens when the rain hits. A mature canopy isn’t just shade; it’s a hydraulic brake system. It catches thousands of gallons of water before they ever touch the dirt. Without that canopy, the rain hammers the bare ground, saturates it in minutes, and gravity does the rest.

Ever wonder why our road repairs are costing more every year? Why the culverts are constantly choked with silt? It’s because we’ve traded our natural infrastructure for expensive “engineered” fixes. A tree manages stormwater for free. A washed-out road or a cracked foundation costs us everything.

We’re seeing more “atmospheric rivers” now. These aren’t the gentle mists we grew up with; they’re fire hoses. When that much water hits a slope that has been stripped of its anchors, the force of gravity pulling the soil down the hill.

The cohesion provided by deep root systems, that equation ends in a landslide. It’s physics, not politics.

We can’t just protect trees in “critical areas” or parks and think we’re safe. The water doesn’t care about property lines. The runoff from a cleared lot at the top of the hill is what undermines the road at the bottom. We’re in this together, whether we like it or not.