How Hurricane Opal Started RJ Tree Service in 1995
On October 4, 1995, Hurricane Opal brought down trees all over Birmingham. A college student named Wesley Jones went out to help – and never stopped.
Most tree services start with a truck and a plan. RJ Tree Service started with a hurricane.
October 1995
Hurricane Opal came ashore near Pensacola on October 4, 1995, and kept moving north through Alabama that night. By the time it reached the Birmingham area it was no longer a hurricane, but it still had the wind to do a lot of damage – trees came down across roads, roofs and power lines all over the city, and many people were without power for days.
Wesley Jones was a college student at the time. He wanted to help people dig out, and he needed tuition money, so he picked up a saw and went to work. That was the first day of RJ Tree Service.
Learning the trade
What Wesley found out in those first months is that there is an art to tree work. Anyone can cut a log on the ground. Taking a tree apart safely over somebody’s house, deciding which limbs should go and which should stay, and leaving a yard cleaner than you found it – that takes years to learn. He liked the work and he liked helping people, and he has been learning it ever since. His motto for it is “advancing the art of tree care”.
Thirty years later
RJ Tree Service is still a family business based in Homewood. Wesley still does the estimates and still works on the jobs himself, these days together with his son. Many of our customers have called us for years – one of them for fifteen.
And storms are still what we drop everything for. When a tree comes down on a house in Homewood, Mountain Brook or anywhere around Birmingham, call (205) 871-3617 – day or night.
