Galveston’s scars are graphic: A wrought-iron historic marker on the seawall has a Cookie Monster-sized bite missing. The once-majestic Flagship Hotel, drapes flapping from exposed rooms, appears cut adrift from the island, its driveway washed away.

But the most striking thing about Galveston in May is this: It looks like January.

Towering oak trees, most conspicuously along Broadway, stand mostly leafless. Lifeless?

Though most else about the hurricane-ravaged city is springing back to life, Galveston is fearing the worst for its trees.

Salt water from Hurricane Ike, which covered 75 percent of the island, severely compromised trees’ root systems. Nine months later, other rebuilding tasks aside, Galveston is looking at millions of dollars to remove and replace dead trees.

Once the waters subsided, city arborists engaged in some frantic triage. The Forest Service urged people to administer gypsum and heavy watering to flush salt water away.

Nature gives and takes, and not always in manageable doses.

Outside of Waco, Mother Neff State Park is still recovering from such an unmanageable wallop. Flooding of the Leon River in 2007 left the park closed for over a year. It has opened to day use, with limited overnight camping (electricity and restrooms are disabled; portable outhouses are deployed).

Infrastructure can be fixed. As with Galveston, the central drama for Ma Neff was with her trees.

Having endured three months under water, mature pecans and elms were at grave risk. At least 20 of them didn’t make it, with 49 trees of varying ages having to be removed.

Fortunately, action by park officials and tree lovers helped. Once the waters subsided, the park called for volunteers to come dig away the silt and sand from the bases of trees.

Park superintendent Leah Huth credited those actions not only for saving many trees but also for making it possible, with suffocating sediment gone, for new-growth pecans to take hold.

In Austin, a controversy has arisen about trees at Barton Springs Park that the city wants to remove because they’re in poor health.

The city says it’s because of various factors including pollution and foot traffic, the latter of which compacts soil and depletes it of nutrients. Citizen activists say the city is acting rashly, and if the trees are in jeopardy it is because of improper care.

Whatever the circumstance, you don’t fully appreciate a tree until it’s gone. That’s why we fight to save them, or should.

The irony about the arborists’ nightmare in Galveston is that many of the trees have been in place since after the 1900 hurricane that killed more than 8,000 people and almost wiped away all vegetation on the island.

At the time, the Women’s Health Protective Association planted 10,000 trees and 2,500 oleanders.

So, a tree isn’t necessarily just nature’s statement. It’s mankind’s statement about livable environs. It’s one which, if nature participates, will speak for us long after we’re gone.

John Young’s column appears Thursday and Sunday. E-mail: jyoung@wacotrib.com.