What the weather can do

Our immediate neighborhood took a much bigger hit from Thursday's storm than I originally thought. Driving around during the past few days I saw more uprooted trees and fallen branches than I have seen in 20 years. Tree trunks are on the ground, large branches, small branches and twigs too. It will take more than few days to clean up. There are caravans of tree people on the main streets, a truck with a cherry picker, a chipper truck and another several more for various purposes. Chain saws are heard everywhere, even today. Eventually the parkway trees will be replaced, but the village has so many limitations for new trees. Fast growing trees are often nuisance trees, or trees with short lives. Elms get fatal diseases, ashes get emerald ash borers. Poplars make a big mess in the spring, and are brittle and have limbs break off in storms. I wonder what they will pick out to replace what looks like several hundred trees?
My class started last week, I now have 18 students, a mix of men and women, and a mix of ages. Most are immigrants, and many speak another language or two.