Is my linden safe in a storm?
Linden wood is only moderately strong and the crown is dense enough to catch ice like a sail, so the classic Indiana failure is an entire codominant leader splitting out of the top of a mature basswood at an included-bark union. Damage tends to be leader and limb tearouts that leave a long strip torn down the trunk, rather than whole-tree windthrow.
What pruning can and can't prevent
Dormant season; lindens take heavy pruning better than most species, and the recurring billable job is clearing basal sprouts, which basswood throws from the root collar every single year. The trap is shearing a littleleaf linden's dense pyramid into a lollipop — the correct work is thinning competing leaders out of the top while the tree is young, because its tight upright branching sets up included-bark forks that show up 30 years later as a split.
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