Is a car hit my tree an emergency?
Within days. The living tissue that moves water up and sugar down is a thin layer immediately under the bark, so a wound that looks like a scrape can still have killed a wide strip of the tree's plumbing. One crash produces two separate questions: whether the tree survives the wound, and whether the impact cracked the stem or loosened the tree in the ground so it may come down. The second question is the one that matters this week; the first plays out over years.
What changes while you wait
The safety question resolves in days: either someone competent examines the base and stem and clears it, or the tree comes down. The health question runs for years. The wound stays open and closes only slowly from the edges — a fraction of an inch to an inch of new tissue a year depending on species and vigor. Decay builds quietly behind that wound, so a tree that shrugged off the crash in year one can be a genuine hazard tree by year ten or twelve. The right outcome is a re-inspection interval, not a verdict.
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