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Billings cleaning up after tornado tears through town

Posted: Jun 21, 2010 10:40 PM by Montana's News Station
Updated: Jun 23, 2010 8:44 AM

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A tornado that tore through Billings Sunday, destroying everything in its path, is long gone, but it left behind extensive damage and a massive cleanup job in the Billings Heights.

Signs of the twister are everywhere as crews work around the clock to clean up everything from twisted metal to big pieces of insulation that blew all over the Heights last night. While street sweepers cleaned debris from the MetraPark parking lot Monday, police worked to keep traffic moving slowly as it bottlenecked from Sixth Avenue North up to Hilltop Road.

Yellowstone County Commissioners along with Billings Mayor Tom Hanel issued emergency decelerations Monday morning on behalf of the city and county.

Governor Brian Schweitzer traveled to Billings to tour the aftermath of Sunday's severe summer storm and to officially declare parts of the city a disaster area. Congressman Denny Rehberg was also hand to get closer look at the destruction.

The twister shredded the MetraPark, leveled businesses and flooded streets and homes.

Although the storm's wrath littered parts of the city with pieces from its victims, there's a silver lining amid the devastation. Rimrock Auto Arena is insured for $45 million.

While the building was shredded, the Antiques Roadshow still plans to film at MetraPark in Billings this Saturday, according to Montana PBS. Despite the tornado, the event will still be held in the Expo Center. Details for the event are still being organized.

The tornado also tore through a number of businesses in the Heights.

On Monday, business owners were on Main Street, assessing the damage and cleaning up the mess.

By Monday afternoon traffic in the area was moving at a snail's pace as people saw first-hand how the tornado devastated numerous businesses. The brunt of the storm hit at Main Street and Lake Elmo Drive where it wiped out a few businesses and left others with a big mess.

Main Street Casino owner Dan Michael wasn't able to see his property until Monday morning.

"I think structurally it's fine, but cosmetically it's pretty beat up. It did take a lot of the glass on the outside," Michael said.

Michael was surveying the damage and was anxious to get debris off his property, including a large billboard that sits in between the casino and Reiter's Kawasaki and Marina.

"I think the legs on the billboard are about 24-inch high beams and they just bent them like matchsticks," Michael said.

Across the street, business owner Bob Witham lost everything.

"I was expecting to have a bunch of broken windows and when I got here, I had the building mostly gone," Witham said.

Witham has owned the Lake Elmo Laundromat for the past 24 years and just two weeks ago, bought the property, which includes a barber shop and the Billings Dance Academy.

"We've got a mess and it's bad for all of us. There's three businesses in here and we're all out of business," he said.

As Witham looked over the damage on Monday, he says the Heights could have suffered a bigger blow from the twister on its unpredictable path.

"By in large most everything was spared, so I think that was a blessing," he said.

Witham added that until he can rebuild, he's out of business.

On the other side of Main Street, the only things still standing at Fas-Break Windshield Repair are three bathrooms.

"The roof is completely gone, the vehicles are all smashed the ones that were in the shop. It is a complete total," owner Kevin Massick said.

Massick has owned Fas-Break for the past six years at this location.

"We're all in a daze. My whole family's in a daze," he said.

He says it's hard to believe that the family business he's built up was devastated in just a few minutes.

"We just work hard and try to do what's right and we're going to try and put it together," he said.

Massick said when you're self-employed, you have nowhere to go but back to work.

Reiters will be open Tuesday and Main Street Casino hopes to open up in a few days.

The Billings tornado may have people wondering what they should look for when getting homeowners insurance.

Greg Neil from First West Insurance said there really isn't anything specific to look for when it comes to insurance for tornadoes. He says a standard homeowner or commercial property insurance policy will cover the storm.

"On a standard homeowner's policy or a commercial property insurance policy a tornado will automatically be covered just as if it's a windstorm. There's no endorsements that are necessary to have coverage for a tornado. It's an automatically covered parallel under a standard property insurance policy," Neil said.

Neil added that if you have concerns the most important thing to do is specifically ask an agent about tornado coverage.

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