Issa Tinitigan stands in front of a Mexican fan palm that was damaged by this month's cold snap. Her neighbors in Summerlin and homeowners elsewhere in the Las Vegas Valley also saw their palm trees and other fair weather plants suffer from the cold weather. Photo by John Locher. Click image for enlargement. Graphic by Mike Johnson.

The Mexican fan palm in Issa Tinitigan's front yard looked more like a bedraggled broomstick Tuesday than a vibrant tropical tree.

It is one of the victims of a cold snap this month that has caused freeze damage to thousands of palms and other fair weather plants across the Las Vegas Valley, horticulturists and a nursery operator said.

Although the verdict isn't in yet on how much homeowners and businesses will spend to replace or salvage damaged trees and plants, the collective price tag could reach hundreds of thousands of dollars based on a conservative estimate of the number of palms affected and the cost for a young palm like the one Tinitigan paid $125 for when it was planted last summer.

"This year was real bad. All my plants died," she said.

Still, she hopes some can be revived. "We'll wait until winter is done."

That's the advice horticulturists and other officials offered. Don't get the shears out too soon to start pruning droopy, yellow-brown fronds that have been nipped by frostbite from temperatures that dipped into the low-20s and teens at higher elevations on the edges of the Las Vegas Valley.

The dead vegetation can help insulate the heart of palms, and there might be more cold snaps in store before winter's end on March 20.

Freezing temperatures, especially in late February or early March, could compound the effect on frostbitten trees, causing widespread vegetation damage like what occurred in December 1990. That's when a prolonged freeze killed many palms, including those at resorts on the Strip, wiped out most of the valley's eucalyptus trees and caused millions of dollars in damage.

National Weather Service spokesman Brian Fuis said temperatures at McCarran International Airport are expected to get down to 38 degrees on Thursday and 39 on Friday. That could translate to below-freezing temperatures at higher elevations on the rim of the valley in Henderson and northwest Las Vegas. Light winds could blow heavier, colder air into lower elevations along the Las Vegas Wash on the eastern side of the valley and near Sam Boyd Stadium.

"It's very possible" that more cold snaps loom on the horizon, Fuis said. "It could easily freeze again."

When temperatures were in the mid-20s this month at McCarran International Airport, where the elevation is 2,162 feet, they dipped into the teens on the southwest and western edges of the valley such as Far Hills Avenue and the Las Vegas Beltway, where the elevation is 3,160 feet.

The Tinitigans live west of that intersection, where freeze damage is particularly bad in what horticulturists call "micro-environments," with trees more vulnerable to cold from wind chill than in other areas where they get more sun.

On the Strip, resort owners learned lessons from the 1990 freeze.

"This cold snap was fairly brief in duration and not as bad as 1990," said Alan Feldman, senior vice president of public affairs for MGM Mirage, which owns 10 major resort properties on the Strip. "We had palm trees take a hit left and right at The Mirage," he said about the record freeze of 1990.

MGM Mirage spokeswoman Yvette Monet said the company's properties fared pretty well during this month's freeze, especially palm trees that have thrived under a special watering program launched after the 1990 experience.

"Palm trees don't like to have wet feet, and that's our key to longevity in maintaining our palms even in cold weather," Monet said.

As a precaution this month, citrus trees and bamboo trees at the Bellagio were wrapped with burlap.

"We lost a few of the leaves on those trees, but they will come back," she said. "Overall, we lost a very small number of plants during the cold snap. Some of the pansies that we plant near the Bellagio entrances succumbed to the cold but we were expecting that."

A spokeswoman for Station Casinos, Lori Nelson, said palm trees at Red Rock Resort and Green Valley Ranch Resort survived the cold snap.

But a Star Nursery saleswoman, April Sprinkle, said the company's store on West Charleston Boulevard has received "tons" of calls from customers, worried about freeze damage to palms and other plants.

Based on the volume of queries, she estimated thousands of trees were affected by the freeze.

"I would say the majority of everybody in town got hurt by it. Most of the palms should recover," she said.

University of Nevada Cooperative Extension horticulturist Bob Morris said fortunately the cold snap hit when palms were dormant. But, he noted, "We're still faced with cold weather."

"It hit at a good time. ... I'm seeing a lot of visual damage but not death," he said.

His advice for dealing with discolored fronds that appear to have burns from the freeze: "Wait. Don't do anything. ... The plant will tell you where to cut this spring."

Morris said the types of palms most vulnerable to cold temperatures are queen palms and pigmy palms. Taller palms, like the Mexican fan, are relatively cold tolerant. Depending on conditions and locations, it takes temperatures down to about 12 degrees to damage date palms, he said.

Springs Preserve horticulturist Linn Mills said it might take three weeks for damage to show up in palm trees.

Mills, too, said don't prune dead fronds until winter is over and warm weather prevails. The heart of the palm is 18 inches to 24 inches beneath where the fronds protrude. "If they take that insulation out and we get a cold snap like we got last week, they're gone," he said.

Mills, a Review-Journal columnist, said a freeze causes ice crystals to form within the cell walls of plants. That punctures the cell and lets all the water out. "That's why you get that crisp look," he said.

Tom Warden, spokesman for The Howard Hughes Corp., said fan palms in Summerlin common areas fared well during the cold snap except for some fronds that are beginning to show freeze burns.

Queen palms at residences "did not do so well. But the good news for the community is we don't use those in the common area," he said.

Warden said homeowners "need to let this thing shake out. It's going to be March before anybody should do anything with regard to the plants, and that's going to give you a handle for seeing if there's been serious damage out there."

Warden said the community's higher elevation is a double-edged sword. "Overall, we love the fact that Summerlin is five or six degrees cooler than the rest of the valley in the summer. But in the winter the cold snaps are a little bit harder."