On December 17, 2025, winds ripped through the Treasure State. Helena saw winds gusting up to 91 miles per hour. The damage was costly and took more than a month to fully clean up.
“Multiple trees taken down throughout the city, 41 in parks, 1000+ we figure in our open space areas, and that's just in city limits,” said city of Helena parks superintendent Patrick Marron.
Other damages include part of the band dome being blown off, as well as damage at the golf course.
Each downed tree the city cleaned up costs around $450 to clean up.
The total costs for the city, not including the costs to private properties, add up to between $25,000-$30,000 so far, with $10,000 of damage at the golf course alone.
Cleaning up a downed tree is a time-consuming process, with the city prioritizing protecting property and clearing roadways.
“We had to cut the tree, remove the root ball, and then now we’re in the process of filling those holes in with dirt,” Marron said. “We’ll hopefully let that settle out, and in the spring, we'll seed or sod those areas and hopefully get them back.”
The downed trees that aren't rotten are reused later for chips and mulch, or even donated as firewood for the community to use.
Just last week, they finished clearing the stumps out of parks, but that doesn’t necessarily mark the end of their work.
Marron says they’re still inspecting trees to identify damaged ones that need to be taken down.
“That number is still going up,” Marron said. “As we clean up and continue to assess all the trees, there's gonna be more, so we'll have to take more out throughout the spring.”
While the majority of the trees lost were spruce, they’ll look to add various types during the replant.
“But that does give us a chance to diversify our urban forestry canopy,” Marron said. “Maybe put trees in a spot that's better suited for that tree, move them farther away from infrastructure and neighbors' houses so if this does happen again, it's not gonna cause as much damage.”
The parks department says they try to plant more trees than they take down, which will have an impact on the budget this year. They plan to submit claims to their insurance company to replace the trees they lost.
