Today we had one of our dead Bizzies and a dead oil palm removed. Both were victims of cat. 4/5 Hurricane Ian. Nine to 10+ hours in the unrelenting eyewall of Ian destroyed them as it did innumerable palms and tropical trees on our property. Unlike most of our casualties that failed spectacularly and were removed within days of the storm, these two behemoth palms appeared to be survivors for a couple months after the storm. But we came to realize they, too, had died. We knew we needed expertise and heavy equipment to bring them down and put the remains out by the street for future FEMA pickup.

Today the cavalry showed up. I took the following photos of the process of bringing down large palms in limited space. Essentially, each was cut in half then carried out.

First, Bye Bye to our last non-mutant Elaeis guineensis at the SW corner of the house

Now for palm #2

Bye Bye Bizzie

Bye Bye Bizzie, Bye Bye Oil

Well, lemonade says, “Now you have room for some great new palms!”.  Does that mean 100% mortality for your Bismarcks for high end hurricanes?  

Sorry for the losses, what exactly about it do you think killed them? Just wind damage? Or did they get inundated with salt water?  Maybe winds shook them around so much it disturbed the roots?  I know the Bizzies don't like their roots being messed with.

So sorry. To lose big mature palms like those is hard to take I’m sure. You’ll have great replacements though I’m sure. 

2 hours ago, Xerarch said:

Sorry for the losses, what exactly about it do you think killed them? Just wind damage? Or did they get inundated with salt water?  Maybe winds shook them around so much it disturbed the roots?  I know the Bizzies don't like their roots being messed with.

Mostly what killed them were many hours of unrelenting wind that shattered their crowns and/or blew them over and rocked their trunks so hard the ground heaved around them and exposed/broke their roots. Didn’t help that we had abundant rain this wet season, including 6” the previous week so our sandy dreck soil was saturated.  Where once our ground was reasonably flat, we now have a panorama of mounds and dips where soil was disturbed. We were too far inland for storm surge so no salt water.

The bis would have came back. 

12 hours ago, Bkue said:

The bis would have came back. 

That’s a definite maybe. The biggest problem (for palms) with hurricane season in Florida is that it comes right before winter. So there’s not much opportunity for the palms to recover before going into hibernation. We just got hit with some cool weather and they are talking about the next front which is supposed to produce the coldest Christmas temperatures in years. These palms could have struggled for a while and then collapsed. Sometimes it’s just better to cut your losses and move on.

15 hours ago, Bkue said:

The bis would have came back. 

Nope. The center of the crown broke then fell over. In almost 3 months not one sign of growth. The two Bizzies that survived have several new leaves each. The trunk was blown off vertical and the soil was washed away from many of the roots. It was a goner and needed to be out of here before FEMA cuts off aid on 12/31.