Steve, Sorry your plant had it's accident. Yes you can divide the plant if you wish. You might want to purchase a terra cotta pot or 2. Plastic works (as you know having had your plant for 10 years), clay allows for faster drying and more aeration. You'll need at least a cactus mix and add more perlite to the mix say 1/3 (some people say 50 50 mix) or use the 5:1:1 mix many people recommend here on this site. I've grown my Sanseviera in Miracle Grow for years. Remove the old dirt from the roots so you are completely replacing the soil. Divide the roots with a sharp knife. I like to put Rootone on the cut, it helps prevent rot. Pot up the sections but best to resist the urge to water in at the moment. Wait say 5 to 7 days before watering. As for the broken pieces, try to root them. If you have several, then try both water and soil rooting methods. Best to let them callous over before putting the cuttings into anything. Always pay attention to what part of the leaf was the top, they will not root if you reverse that. You can cut the broken peaces in 5 inch lengths and let them dry a day or so (callous). Put in water or moist (not soggy) soil. keep warm and in bright light with out any direct sun. The cuttings in dirt, don't pull on them to see if they are rooted, you'll know when you see growth! Water: you can see the root develop. Hope this helps.

Fred

Wow - your plant had definitely outgrown that pot! You need a much bigger pot. And some fresh soil. That will get you started. I wouldn't mess with fertilizer yet. And I wouldn't expose the roots to open air for very long at all. And I wouldn't remove any existing soil. I would separate the plant right down the middle if you want, quickly place in new pot(s), add soil, water it thoroughly, and then let it slowly recover/adapt from the shock of the change. You can trim dead leaves later. Keep it simple.

Thanks to you both for the advice, that’s exactly what I
needed. One more question then I’m off
to wal mart. The current plastic pot is about 8 inches tall
and 8 inches in diameter (give or take).
If I split the plant down the middle to get two plants, what size terracotta
pots would be ideal?

Judging by the pictures, I'd say your old pot was at least half the size it should have been to hold the plant at that stage of its growth. Clearly the plant likes the conditions of your current location! I'd aim for a couple pots that were even larger: maybe 10, 12, or even 14 inches in diameter. I just measured my pots and they're 14 inches in diameter at the top, and the plants are already starting to outgrow their pots after only a few years in them.

I would not go to big because you want the plant to dry out between watering. You are
dividing the plant so I would say get the same size or the next size up. If the plant to pot ration gets too large the soil will not dry out fast enough. Try a 10. A 12 probably would do.
Obviously the plant needs stability, yet it needs to be able to use up the water you give it
hence my caution to plant to pot size ratio. You are cutting the plant in half so it is not a good idea to double the size of the pot. There is also nothing wrong with re-potting every other year or even every year. Sanseviera will only tolerate being moist all the time when it is kept warm and in good light, even then I'd let it dry out in deep winter regardless as the plant will probably go dormant.
Are you going to attempt to root cuttings?

Here’s a status report, things didn’t go too well! I got the cactus mix and perlite and mixed
about 3 to 1 (roughly). I put a few pebbles
in the bottom of each pot. Problems
began when I started to divide the root ball of the existing plant. The moment I picked up and started to gently
pull it apart, the root ball pretty much disintegrated into dust, leaving many
of the 2 or 3 foot long leaves with very small amount of stringy roots on the
end. Plus, more of the long leaves were
more damaged from the fall than I first thought. During the repotting process it would often “up-end”
itself out of the pot and on to the ground due to the weight/leverage of the
long leaves (I have to prop it up for now). Darn!
But the good news there were two clumps of root ball that didn’t fall apart,
that actually had several tender young
shoots at the base (about 4 or 5 inches
long each) and they don’t seem damaged in any way. That’s mostly all I could salvage to re-pot.

Even though this project didn’t go that well, I actually
enjoyed doing it and learned a few things.
I’ve got 4 pieces in water to see if they will sprout roots, and I’ve
got six pieces laid out overnight to “callous”, and I’ll stick them in soil
tomorrow to see if they will root.
Thanks to all for the support on this.

Several suggestions: Root ball disintegrated; that's OK as long as you remove any dead or rotted root. When you re-pot this it can be either staked or you can use a rock to stabilize the leaves so they don't topple over. The cuttings in water; if they start to rot on the end, remove from the water cut off the rot down to healthy tissue then try letting it callous over night and back to clean water. You should change the water every few days for good hygiene. Good luck and keep us updated as I am interested in your progress! Above all have fun with it!

Your description & pics indicate the roots were rotting before. Those leaves would have fallen over soon anyway. Agree, the leaves should all be able to propagate easily.

NOT being packed tightly in a pot, and removing all of that old, dense soil from the pic would help what's left of the old roots recover as quickly as possible. The more chunky/airy/porous your mix, the less of a risk there is for rotting roots.

I would cut the leaves all down to about 1/2 because they are very stretched from not enough light. Cutting the leaves will free up energy for the plant to reestablish a root structure. I know it's a but late now, but just for future reference.

If it were me doing it, I'd try to get the two half's into two six 8th pots or if that was too big, two 8 inch pots. I wouldn't go any bigger with splitting the plant in half.

Do you have an update on this plant?

That sure would be ugly though, cutting off half of each leaf.

Hi! Here’s an
update. The re-potting was a messy
process as noted above. I focused mostly
on this portion, it was the most intact, and it already had 5 or 6 tiny shoots
that were visible BEFORE I did the re-potting.
If you look closely, this shot
shows 2 or 3 of the shoots, with a few more on the other side. Since I repotted (few weeks ago), each of these small shoots
have grown about 3/4

inch. So I’m pretty
sure it’s alive and hopefully will survive.
The other portion is just a collection of the individual, very long
leaves that fell out during repotting. I
put them in soil and have tied them up (so they stand up), but not sure about
them. Also, I have several leaf cuttings
in dirt and a few leaf cuttings in water, but no action there yet. I have to admit this has been interesting project; I’ve
never done anything like this before.
Steve

when I insert a photo, it seems to have a mind of it's own where it ends up in the message !!

I know what you mean, happens to me also. I usually insert photo first then type. Sansevieria off shoots are affectionately called "pups", by the way.
Sansevieria are very tough if not over watered, the loose ones "tied up"
should be able to stand on there own by the end of the summer. You had better
be careful though; Sansevieria are addictive, LOL!