60-foot eucalyptus flattens vehicle at Huntington Beach’s Central Park

A massive eucalyptus tree came crashing down in Huntington Beach’s Central Park Wednesday night, flattening a vehicle belonging to a city-contracted janitorial company but causing no apparent injuries, city officials confirmed.

Huntington Beach Deputy City Manager Jennifer Carey said the incident occurred at around 7 p.m. in a grove of trees along the eastern edge of a Central Library parking lot, near a path used by the company to lock up restrooms at night.

The multiple-trunk eucalyptus, thought to be about 50 years old, was estimated to have been more than 60 feet tall and approximately 30 inches in diameter.

A work crew removes branches and limbs from a eucalyptus tree that fell Wednesday on a vehicle at Huntington Beach’s Central Park.

(Courtesy of Steve Engel)

“No one was injured, but the tree did fall on the vehicle of one of the contractors responsible for locking up our restrooms overnight,” she said Thursday.

Police officers responded to the scene, where a work vehicle belonging to MCS Municipal Contract Services was smashed and completely engulfed by tree limbs.

A work crew removed major branches, allowing for the vehicle to be towed from the scene, while a second crew went out Thursday to examine the tree and haul away its remnants.

“The tree was determined to be in good health, with no wind or water damage — it’s just one of those weird things,” Carey said. “Trees fall, but there’s no reasoning as to why it fell.”

Employees who’d been using the vehicle were not inside the car when the tree fell, according to Steve Engel, a member of the Huntington Beach Tree Society who regularly volunteers in Central Park and went there Wednesday after seeing a social media post about the incident.

He said he and wife Shari, who’ve come to know the cleaning crew over the years, were shocked to recognize the flattened vehicle with the MCS logo on the side from the photos.

“Luckily, they must have been cleaning when this happened, because the car got demolished,” Engel said in an interview Thursday. “I think there were three ladies there. This would have been a tragedy.”

Carey said while that particular grove of eucalyptus trees near the library parking lot receives regular checkups, arborists would revisit the site to assess the health of the remaining evergreens.

“Crews will be returning to assess the health of all the eucalyptus trees in that area,” she said. “They do that every two years but, out of an abundance of caution, they’re going to do it again.”