The storm clouds looked ominous Sunday evening as they quickly rolled into Yellowstone County, bringing with them a torrent of rain, winds up to 70 miles per hour, and crushing hail up to three inches in diameter in some areas. At first it seemed like the storm would skirt around the city and leave the area intact. Unfortunately, the winds changed, and the storm hurled towards the Billings metropolitan area at breakneck speed.
Hailstones, much larger than golf balls, hammered the area.
Corn stocks are broken and bent over, as shown here from Dan Vogel’s 900 acres of corn fields in Worden, from the severe hail storm that struck the area on Sunday afternoon. Vogel said the “feed value will be far inferior this year than normal” due to the severe and extreme hail damage. (Jonathan McNiven Photo)
Early on there was fear of a tornado, but the funnel clouds seen atop the Rims headed for the Heights never managed to touch down. Even though there was no tornado, the damage done by hail throughout the County was severe and extensive.
The worst of the falling sky ice hit the Heights, Shepherd, and Huntley with hail nearly the size of baseballs flying almost sideways from the wind and destroying windows, siding, vehicles, uprooting entire trees, and mowing down crop fields with impunity. At Shepherd Schools, more than 100 windows were smashed on the west side of the buildings, leaving glass, ice, and water piling up on the floor. The school’s bus barn had one of its heavy metal doors caved in and curled up. Shepherd Schools Superintendent Scott Carter says they are still in the process of getting estimates for the cost of the damage, but he says it will be a year and a half long project to repair the buildings. For a school currently battling to get a bond passed to make it possible for them to stop using hallways as classrooms and recently had their kindergarten building condemned, this is a major blow.
The farmers in the Shepherd/Huntley area were also severely affected with entire fields lying flat, their crops destroyed. The damage to homes throughout the area was extensive. If a home had the misfortune of having windows facing west those windows were likely shattered, allowing the storm to drench and destroy the interior. Any vinyl siding now has the look of Swiss cheese at best, plywood fitted over broken house windows and plastic over car windows is a common sight, thousands were left without power, trees laid on the ground after being forcefully uprooted, and in some cases entire small buildings and roofs were ripped apart by the storm. At the airport both Alaska and Frontier Airlines had planes damaged enough that instead of taking off Sunday night as planned, they were grounded until late Monday for repairs.
The resilience of the community was apparent as the deluge of rain water subsided and the wind and sky ice slowed to a halt, with people immediately going about the task of cleaning up and fixing their homes. By midday Monday, things began to look better. Trees and branches were being cleaned up, windows were being covered, and homes and businesses were beginning the process of recovery. Although the scars of this storm will remain in the uncountable number of hail dents to vehicles and the ravaged siding and roofs of Yellowstone County, it takes more than sky ice to cause despair around here.
