Is tree protection law creating danger?; Washington, DC

Danger in Our Tree Canopy - washingtonpost.com
Like most others, I could not help but be moved to tears by the deaths of Kelly and Sloane Murray after a tree branch crushed their car during a summer storm ['With the Crash of a Branch, They Lost Their Supermom,' front page, July 4]. I didn't know the Murrays, but the circumstances of their untimely deaths weigh on me.
In Northwest Washington, as in Chevy Chase, Md., where the Murrays lived, there are many older trees towering over our densely populated community. Overhead electrical wires are precariously strung around or sometimes through these trees. Three days after my husband and I moved to Barnaby Woods, lightning struck a tree down the street, taking out power for three days and causing an electrical fire. My first thought: What did we get ourselves into?