Sidney Herald

Heavy rains, strong wind and even hail made for quite a hectic scene Tuesday evening and into Wednesday morning.

In a storm that lasted less than a half hour, Sidney was pounded by winds up to 47 miles per hour and strong gusts of 67 miles per hour with pea to penny-size hail, according to the National Weather Service in Glasgow. Within an hour, Sidney accumulated up to 4 inches of rain in some areas, which caused flash flooding down several streets.

“What happened is that storm really blew up right over the town,” Tanja Fransen, warning coordination meteorologist in Glasgow, said Wednesday morning.

The aftermath from the tornado-like weather left residents and city and county crews cleaning up the mess. Residents were seen unclogging street drains in a foot or two of water near IGA and Ninth Avenue Southeast and picking up large branches that had been torn off like twigs in yards and streets.

Accumulated water caused several homes and downtown businesses to flood across Sidney.

Ben McDowell, president of Restorx, said residents had outside contaminated water intrusions through windows and doors. Windows were also broke from floating debris. Expectedly, Restorx received numerous calls from residents reporting damage. Workers were hard at it until 11:30 p.m. Tuesday and into Wednesday afternoon examining damage and working on dozens of residential homes.

In other damaging effects, high winds carried a vehicle across a street and plowed into two other vehicles, Sidney Police Chief Frank DiFonzo said. No injuries were reported. Earlier at Crestwood Inn, one resident was stuck in an elevator when the power went out. DiFonzo said there were no serious incidents.

Sidney Volunteer Fire Department Chief Ken Volk reported several downed power lines that had the potential to spark fires. The department had been trying to make its way south toward Savage where a tree fell into a power line when the storm struck. They waited until it was safe enough to pass.

Volk said the firefighters were out until about 10 p.m. directing traffic around fallen lines and moving heavy branches from roadways.

The downed power lines caused outages in town for a little while, mostly around one hour, Mark Hanson, Montana-Dakota Utilities spokesman, said, though there were a few areas in east Sidney where power was out for six hours after the storm passed. Hanson reported no other outages outside of the city. Workers for Lower Yellowstone Rural Electric also were out until early morning hours when substations went down.

Damages in Sidney included three pine trees going down at the Richland County Courthouse. Jim Thogersen, maintenance supervisor, guesses the trees were about 60 years old. Another pine tree in the back of the property also suffered damage and may die.

The courthouse now only has seven or eight trees. Because of Dutch Elm disease, the county lost 18 trees in all during the past several years.

As far as the community services building, Thogersen says some metal blew off the roof, but he doesn’t feel the damage was anything real serious.

Torrential rains had damaging effects on the canal that runs alongside the city, where 30 hay bales blew into the canal near Ridgelawn. “All drains were overflowed, which caused a lot of basements to flood,” Jerry Nypen, manager of Lower Yellowstone Irrigation Project, reported. Crews worked until 11 p.m. Tuesday to remove the bales and unclog drains. Nypen said his crew was still working steadily Wednesday.

Meteorologist Fransen said the thunderstorm, which formed straight-line winds, was one of a few that formed from one large storm along a west-to-east cold front. It covered a region from Sidney south to Wibaux and northeast Fallon counties. The national weather service reported funnel clouds near Glendive around 5:30 p.m., and quarter- to golf ball-size hail in Wibaux. Southeast of Wibaux in Carlyle, there were reports of a tornado that touched down and winds up to 63 miles per hour. No damages were reported.

Photos of the storm are available by clicking on the gray photos tab at the top of the Herald homepage.

reporter@sidneyherald.com