Happy Father's Day???

June 20th, 2010...It started out as a beautifull Father's Day. We ended the day with a drive and a trip to Dairy Queen for Ice Cream. We arrived @ DQ at 4:00pm and 15 minutes later...DEVASTATION!!!

First the skies turned black and then the hail came. We decided to make a break for home...we did not make it! We had just pulled out of the DQ parking lot and began getting pelted with golf ball sized hail. We seeked shelter under the near-by Wells Fargo Bank awning. We were under the awning with 3 other vehicles wating for the rain & hail to pass.

Ryder & daddy waiting for the storm to pass under the Wells Fargo awning.

The hail went from pea sized to marble to GOLFBALL!!

We looked to our right...and there it was! It would touch down...and go back up. Then it would shoot back down even bigger. It did that at least 3 times and everytime it did that...it got closer!

At this point I said to Matt...I don't care about the vehicle...get home. He thought it was best to stay put...until we looked to our left and all the other vehicles taking shelter were gone! We took off for home and it was terrifying!! We hydroplaned on main, drive through water that covered half our door & zero visibility. When we made it to the turn into our neighborhood...it was under water. We went behind the gas station and when we made it to the street it looked like a blizzard had hit. The roads were WHITE with hail. When we made it to the hill...our windshield shattered. I layed on the kids in the back because I was not sure if it would shatter all the way through. It was so loud in the vehicle being pelted by the hail. We finally made it home and had no idea how we were going to get out of the vehicle and into the garage. Matt took the boys in one at a time with a cooler over their heads and then came back for me with a laundry basket for my head. I stepped out of the vehicle and a golf ball sized hail hit my toe and broke it!! OUCH!!! We made it in the house and started checking for damages. We had some flooding in our store room and had that to clean up. 20 minutes later it was calm and beautiful out...so we ventured out to survey the damages...

Hot tub cover was destroyed!! You can see the hail on the trampoline. There was so much on the tramp...it was still there the next day at noon!



Windshield damage as well as 500+ hail dents on Matt's work vehicle!!

Matt had just mowed the yard earlier in the day and had to rake 7 bags of leaves and haul away tons of branches!

All my flowers and pots were looking so great...NOT ANY MORE!!! I pulled out all the ruined plans and salvaged what I could. I dug a golf ball sized piece of hail out of this flowerbed...TWO INCHES UNDER GROUND! That shows you how much force the hail was hitting at!

One piece of hail entered the top of my pot and hit so hard it shot out the side!!

Billings lost it Civic Center (Metra Arena), a glass shop, dance studio, laundry mat & several storage buildings. There was damage to several businesses in the Heights such as McDonalds, Office Depot, a Casino, a Maurine shop, Subway, a hotel and thousands of homes and vehicles. No lives were lost and NO major injuries! Had the tornado hit the night before...the Metra Arena would have been packed with thousands of spectators watching the Billing Outlaws game (indoor arena football)!

We ended up getting a new roof...new gutters...repairs to our dech and fence...new hot tub cover...playset repair...and vehicle repairs. A Fathers Day we will NEVER forget!!