<story><title>How do palm trees survive hurricanes? (2017)</title><url>https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2017/9/10/how-do-palms-survive-hurricanes</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>DelaneyM</author><text>We have a dense line of palm trees protecting our shoreline on our property (South Caribbean), and ours is the only house on a long coast which hasn&amp;#x27;t lost metres of land to oceans over the past decade.  (Our neighbours have prioritised private beaches, I like my farmland.) It&amp;#x27;s easily visible on Google Maps satellite view, but I&amp;#x27;m not sure I want to post a link to my house...&lt;p&gt;Because they&amp;#x27;re all that&amp;#x27;s holding the property together their root systems are exposed on the seaward side, and they are _massive_.  I couldn&amp;#x27;t build a stronger retaining wall.  I wish this article shared some pictures of a palm root system, it&amp;#x27;s really the most impressive part.  Together with seagrape shrubs I think I&amp;#x27;m actually reclaiming a few inches a year.  I also have some great footage of palm trees bent over nearly 90° in a cat-3 from a few years back.&lt;p&gt;One thing not mentioned here is the risk under storms of coconuts.  In a tropical storm, palm trees become coconut catapults when the trunks whip around at high speed and under tension.  We&amp;#x27;ve lost multiple 1&amp;quot;-thick concrete roof tiles to coconut strikes, as well smashing (but not breaching) a cat-3 hurricane door.&lt;p&gt;Here for the Caribbean content!</text></comment>
<story><title>How do palm trees survive hurricanes? (2017)</title><url>https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2017/9/10/how-do-palms-survive-hurricanes</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>js2</author><text>A palm tree, speared by a piece of lumber during Hurricane Andrew:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;imgur.com&amp;#x2F;a&amp;#x2F;3f77mEa&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;imgur.com&amp;#x2F;a&amp;#x2F;3f77mEa&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I was in Miami for Andrew. My dad owned a one-hour photo lab. After the storm, there were tons of insurance adjusters needing their photos developed. My dad and I got his lab open the day after Andrew and ran it on a portable generator for two weeks till the power came back. This was one of the photos we printed during that period. Fun times.&lt;p&gt;The palm trees did fine. Miami also has ficus trees planted all over the place. Huge canopies. Huge root structures, but the roots are very broad and shallow. In my neighborhood, every ficus tree was toppled with its roots pulling up sidewalks and grass. This is not from Andrew, but it looks like this:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;cf-images.us-east-1.prod.boltdns.net&amp;#x2F;v1&amp;#x2F;static&amp;#x2F;5618154292001&amp;#x2F;45c576b3-3406-4133-8c92-7ed961410e83&amp;#x2F;7466ac79-29a8-4772-81ce-37cb747473d0&amp;#x2F;1280x720&amp;#x2F;match&amp;#x2F;image.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;cf-images.us-east-1.prod.boltdns.net&amp;#x2F;v1&amp;#x2F;static&amp;#x2F;56181...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s hard to convey the destructiveness of Andrew to folks who weren&amp;#x27;t there, but this gives some idea:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;historycollection.com&amp;#x2F;31-images-hurricane-andrew-destruction&amp;#x2F;2&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;historycollection.com&amp;#x2F;31-images-hurricane-andrew-des...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Apparently that tree is a celebrity. I didn&amp;#x27;t realize there were a bunch of picture of it on the Internet till now:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;duckduckgo.com&amp;#x2F;?q=hurricane+andrew+palm+tree&amp;amp;ia=images&amp;amp;iax=images&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;duckduckgo.com&amp;#x2F;?q=hurricane+andrew+palm+tree&amp;amp;ia=imag...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>