Horrible, terrible no-good, very bad weather

The weather service predicted violent weather today, and boy they were not kidding.  This weather system spawned not only very violent thunderstorms but some massive tornadoes.  The nearest tornado was NW of us by 30 or so miles, but the thunderstorm that swept through was the most violent TPP can ever remember.  There were gusts of wind in the 50 to 60 mph range that bent tree crowns to the absolute limit.  During heavy rain some of these gusts reduced our visibility to just a few yards.  Tree limbs were dropping like the leaves were dropping just a few days ago.  Hail stones the size of chicken eggs came down leaving 1" deep dents in the lawn.  Our street flooded, over flowed, and watching stoopid drivers try to drown their cars provided some comic relief.  The kitty girls were quite nervous and required much attention.  After the storm passed and while surveying the damage came the discovery that a 13-15 inch diameter section of trunk split off the back side of a large hackberry tree, and the 60-70 feet of crown attached came down across the rear gardens like a giant fly swatter and a number of shrubs and flowering trees will need some serious pruning once we get the bloody hackberry cut out of the way.  My prized parasol pine escaped a near miss by a large oak limb fall.  Lot's of other minor damage occurred, but nothing too serious.  Next year's supply of fire wood has been taken care of.  But others had it much worse. One of my students' homes was in a neighborhood hit by a tornado and suffered some severe damage and loss of power.  The weather service said they were moving at 65 mph!  And she's worried about taking an exam tomorrow.  Naturally she'll be cut some slack, especially if she comes over and drags some limbs to the curb (a joke!).