Yesterday at 4:30 pm mountain time, Billings was struck by a tornado. The majority of the damage was up in the Heights.
Jennifer and I took Gary out to a movie and dinner for Father's Day. We left Hardin when Jennifer got off work. He wanted to see the movie "The Karate Kid" and for dinner we ate at Dos Machos.
The weather was beautiful when we left and it was still nice when we went to the theater around 3:30 to see to movie. About half way into the movie an announcement was made that if you parked in the middle of their parking lot, you will want to move your vehicle as the parking lot was flooded. We had parked on the outer edge of the parking lot. Gary did go out and check.
He said that the water was up over the tires on the cars and there was a small sports car where the water was up to the doors. It was raining very hard. That explains the thundering booms we heard was the thunderstorm outside, not sounds from a movie in the next theater like we had originally thought.
When we got out of the theater the rain had stopped, still plenty of water in the parking lot. We just had to walk on the outer edge, didn't get our feet wet at all. Gary said that the water had gone down some. One of the times when I didn't have my camera with me. We then headed over to Dos Machos for dinner.
It wasn't until we got home when Gary opened an e-mail from a friend with video of the tornado hitting the Metra. It was just incredible. Fortunately there were not injuries or fatalities from the tornado. Some people did have injuries from the hail, which I understand was pretty good sized.
Here are a couple photos of the damage. The McDonald's is across from the Metra and people inside at the time rode the storm out in their coolers. The other photo is an aerial view of the Metra. At the time no event was going on. Saturday was a football game. Both of these photos I got off the Billings Gazette website and are photos taken by the gazette staff. You can go to www.billingsgazette.com and see more photos and news of the tornado.
Photos courtesy of the Billings Gazette.
3 comments:
How did Hardin fare in the storm? This is Little Big Horn Days and it always storms then.
All Hardin got was some rain. Must have been on the very edge of the storm. At least when we got home everything was over.
I love your new blog layout!
Glad Hardin didn't get hit too hard.
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