big day in Bozeman

I'm not sure if I believe in the idea of a sixth sense, but I definitely did feel anxious yesterday morning. I thought it was because it was snowing pretty heavily and I was nervous about Josh driving to school. Fast-forward to about 8:15 a.m.--I am just out of the shower and making some toast for breakfast. Suddenly all the power goes out and about two seconds later, it feels like something HUGE fell on the roof of our building. The windows rattled and the dishes clanked in the cupboards, and I could even feel it rattle in my chest.

Hmm, I thought. Honestly, I wasn't too scared because we've had so much construction on our building lately that I've gotten used to banging and thudding. And with the snow, I thought maybe something had toppled over on the roof. About half an hour later, the power was back on.

But then I heard on the radio that there was an explosion downtown Bozeman. I turned on the TV and learned more and saw the beginning coverage. Apparently there was a natural gas explosion in a restaurant on Main St that totally levelled 3 buildings and destroyed 6 businesses. Windows were blown out of buildings up to 2 blocks away. There was a car parked in front of the restaurant that was blown into the middle of the street. Some people who live or work a couple of blocks away said the explosion sounded like an airplane crashing into their building, or a cannonball going off, or an earthquake. We live about 4 blocks away from Main St., and I definitely felt it too.

So this is a pretty big deal here. There was a mandatory evacuation for a 2-block radius and Main St. will definitely be closed for several days while they clean up all the debris. The National Guard has been called in. One of the gas lines still hasn't been shut off, which is another reason why no one is allowed to get close. They let the fire keep burning all day yesterday because they weren't able to shut the gas line off. One woman is still missing, and they haven't been able to start searching for her until today because of the debris, gas, and fire. But how amazing that no one else was hurt or killed. It's truly amazing.

So it's kind of sad that part of Main St. is destroyed. A deli that we really liked is gone, as well as a restaurant that I had been hoping to try soon. The picture above is of the fire yesterday morning taken from our apartment building 4 blocks away. We could smell the smoke all the way by our apartment.

Exciting and scary.

Click here for the coverage from our local news. Click on the yellow highlighted "photo gallery" link to see impressive photos of the destruction.