During our construction a good storm blew up and knocked over a 50 foot palm tree within a few yards of one of the buildings. The other palm nearby also had a rotted trunk so I decided it should come down too.
The windblown palm was hung up in another tree and was very difficult to take down safely. The final cut had me running to safety with a 1000 lbs of tree chasing after me.
The second palm was only 5 feet from one of my buildings and standing straight up. While I cut the notch to fall away from the building, you never can be too sure. I cut almost all the way through and sat there pushing with all my might on this monster trunk, praying it would fall in the opposite direction. Thankfully all went as planned and soon the tree was on the ground and being cut into 12 foot lengths.
Palm trees are different from any tree I have encountered before. Only the outer part of the trunk is hard. The inner part is so soft I was able to break a piece four inches thick with my bare hands. The outer part is so hard you have to predrill holes or use concrete nails to penetrate it.
After cutting it into logs I quartered the trunks and one of the guys cleaned the soft pulp off the inner side leaving a 12 inch wide curved board. Then we cut each of these into 4 inch wide pieces of lumber using the chainsaw.
Another facinating thing I learned was that palm trees are edible. Up at the top, there is a long green stem before the leave shoot out. Under the tough green layer there is a white "heart" of palm. It has layers like an onion and tastes a bit like coconut meat but milder and very pleasant. The texture was a lot like water chestnut.