On Tybee the wind off the Atlantic writes itself into the trees, bending the live oaks landward and keeping the cabbage palms rattling half the year. Longwater Tree Service of Savannah works the island lanes and the back-river lots — thinning a crown so a gust passes through instead of pushing against it, trimming limbs back from a roofline, removing a tree that salt and weather have finished with. Pruning on a barrier island is really wind management, and every cut is made with the next big blow in mind. When one comes ashore and buries a yard under limbs, the crew works in, opens the lot and carries the load back off the island. What is left is bare ground, a clear piece of sky, and one less thing to think about when the water turns gray again.