BIG TIMBER — Residents are cleaning up after a powerful storm Sunday downed trees across town and tipped over semis.
It's the second devastating windstorm in three months, with longtime residents facing a similar cleanup in December.
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Brian Kober, who has lived in Big Timber for decades, said the windy storms this winter have been unusual.
"Yesterday was very excessive," Kober said. "I've been at this house since 2007, and this is probably the worst I've seen it."
Kober was outside of his home on Monday morning, using a chainsaw to slice a tree that came down in his front yard. That tree narrowly missed his roof and only damaged his satellite dish.
"Come around to the front and this one was down and had to check and make sure what kind of damage we had," Kober said. "I really lucked out. I mean, it missed everything. I can live with the satellite dish being gone a couple weeks until they come and replace it."
For Kober, the cleanup is becoming a familiar routine. He said another tree came down during the powerful windstorm in December.
"It's been like that for a couple weeks now, and it just ramped up pretty good this time," Kober said.
Judy Hillner, another longtime Big Timber resident, said the winds this winter have felt different.
"It was about three in the afternoon when things got really ugly," Hillner said of Sunday's storm.
Hillner attends a church across the street from the Lion's Club Park, where two massive pine trees were uprooted and nearly crashed into the city pool. She said those trees hadn't fallen when she left Mass on Sunday around 1 p.m. but that they fell soon after.
She said it's strange that the town has had two destructive windstorms in such a short amount of time.
"It's normally windy, but not like this winter," Hillner said. "I've never known that to happen before, so yeah. It's been quite a winter. The worst I've ever seen."
