Palms and Hurricane Michael

[metalfan]

Looking at the news footage on CNN this morning of the devastation in Mexico Beach, I was immediately struck by this fact: although 100% of the buildings in the town were affected in some way, all the way from being totally levelled to maybe just having significant roof and siding damage, and most of the regular trees, the lawns and shrubs and vegetation were completely gone, the PALM TREES looked, well, almost NORMAL. Fronds waving in the breeze, still standing upright, maybe a little battered but totally ok. In many cases as they panned the cameras the palm trees were the tallest things in the video. I guess that is evolution at work...the way palms are built makes them perfect for survives these powerful storms. 

[PalmatierMeg]

During Hurricane Irma we lost nearly 3 dozen tropical trees to wind. We lost two palms to wind: a non-trunking B. alfredii that had its stem ripped off the basal plate and our huge dwarf red spicata coconut that leaned over the vacant lot next door and was too large to pull back upright. We had to take it down. The palms dealt with hurricane winds so much better than dicot trees. They lean away from the wind and, if necessary, release fronds to save themselves.

[redant]

The sable palm laughs at hurricanes and fires. They are very durable.

Edited October 12, 2018 by redant

[mike in kurtistown]

I have observed the same with cabbage palms (Sabal palmetto). Post-hurricane will find them standing straight and unbowed, albeit with many of their leaves pretty tattered on the edges. Royal palms will lose their fronds but grow them back in subsequent months. Clinostigmas do well. But the latter two genera will not grow in the Florida panhandle.

 

[Reeverse]

Unbelievable how well the sabal palmetto s did with 155 mph or so wind. 

[metalfan]

Much better than the buildings .The losses of the families there is just staggering. I am an artist and am doing an art show this weekend. One of the people I see a lot at shows I do is a lady from Tallahassee. She says this weekend they are glad to be somewhere other than Tallahassee. There is no power, trees are down everywhere, none of the grocery stores are open because there is no power, none of the restaurants ditto, she said they spent 7 hours huddled in their interior laundry room while the storm passed over them and that the wind sounded like a train was going by the entire 7 hours. Trees and power poles are on the ground everywhere. Their house was spared but the house next door had a huge tree cut it in half.

[pj_orlando_z9b]

I couldn't even imagine what those people went through. When Irma came through as only a Cat 1 probably even tropical storm at the time the pressure in my ears was strong. 920 mb had to be hurting their heads. One thing I noticed from pictures of hurricanes in tropical regions is coconuts can get beat up pretty bad probably cause of the size of the canopy. Mine definitely got a lean from Irma. Godspeed to everyone in the path of Michael.

[Zeeth]

10 hours ago, pj_orlando_z9b said:

I couldn't even imagine what those people went through. When Irma came through as only a Cat 1 probably even tropical storm at the time the pressure in my ears was strong. 920 mb had to be hurting their heads. One thing I noticed from pictures of hurricanes in tropical regions is coconuts can get beat up pretty bad probably cause of the size of the canopy. Mine definitely got a lean from Irma. Godspeed to everyone in the path of Michael.

Coconuts tend to lean over when young, but established palms actually do very well. Check out these Philippine tall coconuts after Super Typhoon Haiyan (a cat 5):

 

Or these Jamaican tall coconuts in Bahia Honda after Irma:

[pj_orlando_z9b]

1 hour ago, Zeeth said:

Coconuts tend to lean over when young, but established palms actually do very well. Check out these Philippine tall coconuts after Super Typhoon Haiyan (a cat 5):

 

Or these Jamaican tall coconuts in Bahia Honda after Irma:

They do look strong! Even the ones in the top picture look less ragged. For cat 5 that's impressive. 

[Matthew92]

I've noticed in footage and pictures from Hurricane Michael that some Sabal palms snapped at a part of the trunk like this. I think that narrow spot is the time the palm was transplanted to that location.

[Moose]

The queens didn't do so well. At least not seen any survivors.