BATON ROUGE - A dead tree is threatening to fall, and the property owner closest to the tree in question says he's trying to remove the threat before it causes further damage.

The tree is on private property behind Kim Gardiner's backyard off Hillside Drive. He fears it could do a lot of damage if it falls.

"I first noticed it when limbs from that tree fell onto my fence," he said.

The dead tree is between Gardiner's fence and a railroad track owned by Kansas City Southern. About a year and a half ago, he said he contacted someone at the railroad company and received an interesting answer.

"They said, 'yeah I know the tree you're talking about. I'm not really worried about it because it's leaning your way,'" Gardiner recalled.

At the beginning of September, Gardiner contacted 2 On Your Side about his concern. That's around the time 2 On Your Side contacted KCS. On Sept. 18, KCS wrote to 2 On Your Side saying it's engineering department investigated the tree on KCS property and found that the tree is dead with only a few limbs. Since the tree is near power lines, KCS said it's working to get in touch with Entergy about cutting it down.

Gardiner says the clock is ticking.

"I'm worried about having to do the clean up if it falls my way. And I also worry about if it falls on the tracks, some train hitting it or it hitting a train," he said.

Nothing further from KCS Monday.