After one year, $4 million and 650 dead trees, Missoula is still feeling the impacts of 2024's freak storm.
Austin Amestoy
Just about one year ago, hurricane-force winds blasted through Missoula county. They caused millions of dollars in damage to homes, business and trees, and will leave a lasting impact on the city’s urban forest.
When Missoula urban forester Ben Carson walks through town, it’s hard for him to focus on anything other than trees and the stumps left behind by last summer’s monster storm.
“There’s another tree that was lost to the storm,” Carson says, pointing to a big stump in the University district. “That was a big one, blown completely apart, there was like nothing left of the canopy.”
Missoulians were quick to chop up and ship away the remains of those toppled trees. But Carson says long-term harm to the remaining trees can be hard to see. Some left standing still lost a lot of their branches. While they may be green now, Carson says the damage will likely hasten their death.
“A lot of these trees are functionally at the end of their lives, especially in the older neighborhoods,” Carson says.
It’s not just the storm that’s hurting the trees. Carson says hotter, drier summers, unexpected cold snaps and balmy winter weeks are testing the resilience of Missoula’s urban forest. The storm just compounded those issues.
The numbers behind that storm are staggering: $4 million in recovery costs. More than 650 trees lost on city land alone. Thousands of hours of labor. All of that the result of less than two hours of so-called “straight-line winds” that peaked higher than 100 miles per hour in some places.
Missoula County emergency management director Adriane Beck says city and county agencies responded quickly and efficiently to the storm.
“And that is a testament to the people that work in those agencies,” Beck says. “It’s a testament to the leadership from our local electeds, in that there is an expectation that we work together.”
She says nearly 2,000 calls came into 911 during and after the storm — so many that dispatchers in Flathead County had to help for a time.
Beck and Carson are both concerned damaging wind events could become more common as the climate warms and summer storms grow more unpredictable.
Without a substantial boost to resources, Carson estimates it will take the urban forestry department a decade or more to replace the public trees uprooted last summer.
Storms slams the Bitterroot leaving behind severe damage.
Victoria Traxler
Extreme weather wasn’t contained to Missoula last year. Late summer storms also blew through the Bitterroot Valley, causing severe damage along the way.
Missoula, Mineral and Powell County towns lost power and were damaged by wind, downed powerlines and fallen trees. Hamilton Parks Director Amy Fox still feels the impacts a year later.
"Any time there’s a storm forecasted or we get a lot of heavy snow, or wind or ice – which is really the worst – I definitely don’t sleep very well," Fox says.
The one-two punch of storms last summer slammed communities across the region.
It was July 24 when the thunderstorm with hurricane-force winds hammered Missoula County.
Assistant Chief for Missoula Rural Fire District Kirk Paulsen says their agency was all-hands-on-deck.
"When the wind impacted my own house and blew our trampoline across our backyard into our shed, right away there was call after call after call coming in."
Paulsen says they responded to more than 120 calls that night. Some small fires erupted as well. Crews were spread throughout the county in places like Lolo, Bonner and East Missoula. Power outages also hit towns like Superior and Alberton.
Back in Hamilton, Fox remembers thinking, "Thank goodness that didn't hit us."
On August 23, another storm rolled into the Bitterroot Valley. This time towns south of Missoula bore the brunt of the damage. Gov. Greg Gianforte issued disaster declarations for both Stevensville and Hamilton.
Fox says they’re still working on removing damaged branches and trees from the storm, which caused more than $100,000 in damage to city property.
Hamilton officials recently approved a one-time emergency levy that will raise $29,000 to reimburse costs from the cleanup. This also means the town can receive designated emergency funding from the state.
Fox says now she’s thinking critically about which trees to plant as they replace what was lost.
"I'm looking for trees that are more drought hardy, that are more resistant to salt," she says. "And that, yeah, maybe the shape of them makes them more conducive to being able to withstand windstorms."
Hamilton’s Mayor Dominic Farrenkopf says he’s proud of the way these communities came together. But, he hopes they never need to navigate emergencies like that again.
