HELENA — Much of the Helena area experienced wind gusts exceeding 80 miles per hour, leaving homes without power and some without roofs and walls.
“That was horrendous, that was terrible,” Helena resident, Mary Mills, said.
A feeling Mills has never experienced in her 12 years in her Helena Valley neighborhood.
Mills said, “Then I looked, and I saw his roof go flying off and hit the side of her house there.”
Neighbors rallied together and parked a truck on top of the roof to hold it down until the wind dies down, but the crumpled roof is not the only thing the wind left behind.
“It was just filling every place, all the debris, and all I could think was, oh my gosh,” Mills said.
A neighborhood covered in mounds of insulation from a house with no roof.
Off of Lincoln Road, another structure saw severe damage, “It was lifting the whole barn off the side,” Deb Monroe said.
The Monroe family rushed to the barn to get all of their valuables out and make sure their animals and neighbors were safe.
“It felt like we were just being sandblasted,” Monroe said.
Deb Monroe and her husband say this is the worst wind they have endured in their twenty years on the property.
“We have spent the morning picking up 24-foot sheets of metal three neighbors down,” Monroe said.
Although many in the community have lost so much in the storm, the damage has brought the community together.
“Then you know we get all these people that within 15 or 20 minutes they are at your house, everybody is trying to help you save everything you worked for your whole life for,” Monroe said.
