BILLINGS — Winds reaching above 70 miles per hour swept through Billings Thursday, leaving residents dealing with downed trees, damaged vehicles, bent streetlamps and power outages across the city.
Piper Gershmel was among those caught off guard when a tree fell on her car near Billings Senior High School, bringing a streetlamp down with it.
"I was in shock," Gershmel, a sophomore and recent state champion wrestler at Senior, said Thursday.
Watch Billings residents talk about the damages:
Gershmel said she first learned of the damage through a text.
"He sent me a video, and it was the wind that had blown the tree on it. And then I saw the pole had also gotten bent on it," Gershmel said.
The scene left her struggling to make sense of what she was seeing.
"There's — like literally I texted the kid. I was like, 'There's no way the wind did that. I don't believe that. There's no way it would break a metal pole.' I was like, 'You're kidding,'" Gershmel said.
It wasn't until she saw the footage more closely that the picture became clearer.
"I was confused on how the wind bent the pole until I saw that the pole was behind the tree, and it came down with the tree," Gershmel said.
The damage wasn't limited to one neighborhood. Just down the street, the newly installed bronzed statues of a buffalo herd at Doc Holiday's Roadhouse at 760 20th St. W. was knocked to the ground by the wind. They were cleared away from a front-end loader.
Up in the Heights, Jamie Rindahl said the storm caught her attention immediately.
"It was a shock, but this wind is pretty intense," Rindahl said.
Rindahl, who has lived in Billings for more than 15 years, said she had never seen anything like it.
"This wind is very insane. I've not really seen anything like this," Rindahl said.
One of her trees came down during the storm — a loss she said hit hard.
"It was very sad to see that one come down," Rindahl said.
Now, she is focused on cleaning up.
"They're just going to have to cut it off the fence, repair the fence, and maybe use the rest of it for wood for a fire pit," Rindahl said.
