Grand Oak withstands Sandy by Shedding

You've seen the photos of many trees downed by Hurricane Sandy. Here's an oak tree that stood steady.

It's interesting that instead of large branches breaking off of this tree, the tree "shed" what seem to be thousands of branch ends which ranged from a few inches in length to a few feet. You can see some of them piled up in a line in the street above. Here is a photo of a typical one.

It's as though the tree knew that it had to relieve the force of the wind so it discarded leaves and tips so that it could survive these immense forces. Reminds me of a ship's crew tossing cargo into the sea to avoid the ship sinking cause of encroaching water making it too heavy to float.