August 2, 2001:
Incredible Wind Damaging Storm...
At around 7:30 on August 2, 2001, the town of Sioux City was awakened by one of the most incredible storms for some time.  A supercell thunderstorm plowed straight through the north side of town, bringing 70-80 MPH winds, torrential rainfall, and even damaging hail.
I emerged to find that I couldn't even see the street some 100-200 feet in front of my window.  It was actually raining that hard!  Soon, the winds picked up (and did they ever).  The tiny sapling outside my window endured incredible torment as it was nearly bent in two by the hurricane force winds. 
The hail began soon afterwards, and grew to about the size of marbles.  The 70+ MPH winds slammed the hail into my sliding glass door so hard, it sound like it could smash it in (luckily, it didn't.)
After about 20 minutes, the storm exited, but not before leaving incredible devastation.  It was so bad, the state of Iowa declared much of Sioux City a 'disaster area'.
A few hazards I ran into on the way to the supermarket.  These may look bad, but this was considered some of the 'minor damage' across the area...
Left:  A lucky house after a near miss from a thick tree.
Right:  A not-so-lucky van gets hit by two trees.
There were SO many trees and limbs down, local residents used the side streets as area to pile them up!  I had to take 3 detours to get to a street that's only 3/4 mile away.
Left:  Nearly a dozen healthy pines fall victim to the high winds.
Right:  A huge cottonwood tree uses a roof to break its fall.
Same scenario as the last picture, but a different angle.  (A little blurry).  Look how the 70+ MPH winds completely uprooted the tree.
A large tree nearly splits this house in two.  As bad as this looks here, it looked 10 times worse in person...