Once those elms are dead for several years, like more than 5, they get punked out around the trunk and the dangerous thing is where the first main limbs branch off, not always but often a good place to take a close look and see, regardless you can't trust them. The top areas, thinner limbs, seem to weather, and dry up nicely, they don't punk at all, I've had some of that wood on the ground for years and it was rock hard and no punk at all, so it's good until where it meets the soft areas of the dead tree, and that is hard to predict or see.
I just had to take one of these down for a customer, in her back yard, part of it already fell on an adjacent school fence. There was still a nice size set of upper limbs, but they were to one side and the lean of the tree was easily recognized. So, being optimistic, I still put the face cut opposite the lean as sometimes you get lucky, there was a neighbors fence under it. Well by safety standards the whole thing kinda went wrong, pinched the saw on the back cut, tree still up, though my cut was 98% complete, I pushed on the trunk by hand, got the widow maker to snap off in a safe direction, but then the darned trunk came back at me, I had to step out of the way, and of course I did not clear enough of the other parts of the tree, I bucked up previously. The trunk was full of ants, close to 3 feet in diameter, but dry, punked, so it was not all that heavy, might have been 6 feet or so. It would have a. knocked the wind out out me, or broke a leg if it got me, cause of the logs on the ground.
In retrospect, I violated my own rules, always clear the work area, so you have a clean escape and the lean of the tree is what it is unless you have means to correct or change it without putting ones self in danger, to heck with any fences, I should have just dropped it in that direction, I knew the widow maker was there, it was an easy read on the tree, and there was plenty of room to cut without being under it. There is always enough time to step away, but one thing is for sure, you cannot take your eye off what will fall, you get one chance and just enough time to get away (obviously if you can't see other parts that could get you or you cannot watch and have to be under a potential falling limb, you cannot cut the tree safely and should leave it be) I cut while looking up on this one the entire time. She paid me well for this job, few hundred so I did the job, but it could have gone wrong, one has to sit back and remember NEVER to deviate from the rules of safety when cutting trees, I did and got away with it, but that red flag sure popped up in my mind to never do one like this again.
I was in the kitchen one morning and the wind came up, and my window overlooks a hill/field, that the house was built in, and there is a dead elm was a beautiful tree, and a huge piece came off, I could hear it even though the windows were closed. Darned things are dangerous, so much that those big ones, once dead too long, just too dangerous to deal with without having the means, like a lift bucket or what have you to limb em first, I let em be, and stay the heck away from em, you never know when it is coming down, like you said.
Glad you were not under it, the good parts of the wood are great kindling, actually the best, burns clean and real hot, quickly, but the rest once punked is marginal, I've burned it, but it's not worth the effort unless that is all there is, not worth dealing with those big dead ones for any reason, mother nature will deliver those limbs and the trunk eventually LOL !!!
