You should carve a baseball bat from trees like that.

Great story! Being in a tent in a thunderstorm of that intensity is a memorable experience, even without tree shrapnel invading your tent.

It is wild to see a tree explode from lightning. I saw that once, on a harrowing descent down a 4WD road during a drenching storm, trying to get across an arroyo before the flood made it impassable for several hours. I was navagating down this rutted, rocky road (which has become a creek) when a bolt hit a pinyon tree next to the road in front of me. Damn thing just exploded, throwing chunks of firewood in all directions. The next day I found a piece of the tree a hundred yards away.

I didn't beat the flood though. By the time I got down to the arroyo crossing, it was full of choclate brown water with six foot standing waves. So I waited. I've crossed plenty of rivers and creeks, but a flooded arroyo is another thing. Once the water drained down far enough that I thought it was safe to cross I discovered that the road back to town was completely washed out for about three miles. Had to take the long way back to the hotel, about another hour's drive while tired, hungry, and cold. Again, I was lucky, though. Had I been just fifteen minutes earlier in bugging out of the study area I'd have been in the canyon when the flash flood hit. Several cars had been washed away by the flood in the narrows, nobody died, but a dozen people spent the night in the canyon, their cars mired in mud and gravel or stranded between washouts.