Yesterday a tornado made a visit to Billings. This hasn't happened here in 50 years.
Bruce and I were at a congregational meeting at the church building when the siren went off. Being a transplanted Okie, I immediately thought tornado, but the locals just thought it was hail and high winds. Unfortunately, I was right. We all retreated to the basement as a precaution. The tornado - and F2 - touched down on the east side of Billings causing a lot of damage. The worst hit was Metra park - our events center for concerts, indoor football, etc. As you can see by the picture, there was extensive damage. Several other businesses were destroyed as well. There was also massive flooding across the city. Fortunately there were no serious injuries and no deaths. We did get mentioned on ABC's Good Morning America. (I wasn't even sure they knew where Montana was!!) The sad thing - for me - about the Metra being damaged, is that we have tickets to Antiques Road Show, which was supposed to be there next Saturday. Maybe they can just change the venue.
As for us, we had a little flooding in our basement, but it is all concrete, so all we had to do was a little mopping. We were very fortunate.
I thought moving to Montana would get me out of the paths of tornadoes. Guess not!!
