Will palms snap during earthquakes?

[SailorBold]

I hope everything is ok there in the Bay area... just brought a question in mind... will the palms just sway?

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Palms will sway for those who drink all the spilled wine.

[Jim in Los Altos]

They sway with the ground's undulations just as they sway in the breeze. The quake woke me up but around 3:45 AM or so but I thought I had imagined it. The Bay Area is fine. There are obviously some isolated areas of damage in the Napa Valley.

[ghar41]

Rarely if ever feel them over here (knock on wood) but thinking about our friends in the Napa area today

[SailorBold]

Apologies for my bad grammar... I sent Patric an email and he said he didn't feel a thing where he was.... roughly 60 miles away. Its a miracle that no one was killed and it indeed seems very localized. We have tremors here from time to time, nothing over a 6...but a 4.7 located seventy miles away will resonate in our valley here...

I forget how strong roots are.. for something so top heavy to not uproot is amazing...

Indeed Axel that palm is swaying ! lol... Now a question would be.. is it waving?

With all the pics I see on here.. there are only a few items that can be used for scale...

1. Beer cans

2. Beer bottles

3. 5 gallon bucket

4. Shoes

5. Wine bottles?

[trioderob]

depends on how strong it is

here is what it looked like in Alaska in the 60s when a quake about a millions time stronger than the Napa one hit.

and this was 75 miles from epicenter !

On March 27, 1964 at 5:36pm local time (March 28 at 3:36 UTC) a great earthquake of magnitude 9.2 occurred in the Prince William Sound region of Alaska. The earthquake rupture started approximately 25 km beneath the surface, with its epicenter about 6 miles (10 km) east of the mouth of College Fiord, 56 miles (90 km) west of Valdez and 75 miles (120 km) east of Anchorage.

The earthquake lasted approximately 4.5 minutes

Edited August 26, 2014 by trioderob

[trioderob]

on the flip side there is one place to really see how tuff palms are - here is Chile after a monster quake

so unless there is catastrophic damage to the soil the palm makes it - that's my vote anyway !

bwaaaa haaaa haaaa ............

Edited August 26, 2014 by trioderob

[DoomsDave]

Chile holds the record for worst earthquake, at 9.5 in 1960.

[Pando]

depends on how strong it is

here is what it looked like in Alaska in the 60s when a quake about a millions time stronger than the Napa one hit.

and this was 75 miles from epicenter !

On March 27, 1964 at 5:36pm local time (March 28 at 3:36 UTC) a great earthquake of magnitude 9.2 occurred in the Prince William Sound region of Alaska. The earthquake rupture started approximately 25 km beneath the surface, with its epicenter about 6 miles (10 km) east of the mouth of College Fiord, 56 miles (90 km) west of Valdez and 75 miles (120 km) east of Anchorage.

The earthquake lasted approximately 4.5 minutes

Great stuff! This is how the the area in your picture looks like now. Seems that they never rebuilt anything on the ground that subsided.

https://www.google.com/maps/@61.218563,-149.882949,3a,75y,67.31h,74.23t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1ssyS-4p_KH5j5mXW6zWf_bw!2e0

Edited August 26, 2014 by Pando

[Pando]

If we see palm trees start snapping or shearing off during an earthquake, we would have a lot bigger things to worry about.

This is what oak trees look like on a Magnitude 6.0 earthquake, which is similar to the recent Napa quake: