After heavy rain and strong winds rocked communities Wednesday afternoon, Belgrade residents described the scene from one of the hardest hit towns.
“We came back out [and] saw the sun come out and we saw … trees everywhere, it was crazy,” resident Laura Richter said.
Richter was sitting on her porch with friends as the storm came through.
“All of a sudden, the skies got black … and the wind came up, so we went inside,” she said.
It only took minutes for the storm to cause damage, she said. One tree punched through her roof.
“We could hear the tree come through the house, and we went to the basement and heard all sorts of noise,” Richter said. “Three minutes, it didn’t take long at all.”
Down the road, there was more damage. Signs were toppled and branches and debris were in the streets and on houses.
“There was a little bit of rain that started to come in and then the wind picked up,” summer resident Nick Nichols said. “A couple of floats started to blow, and then about 30 seconds later, trees started to come down and dock pieces were flying in the air.”
Nichols said doors were shattered from the intense winds.
“Once things were kind of settled here, I jumped in my boat … like every other house has huge trees, some are in houses, some are next to houses,” he said. “Docks are mangled but the shoreline is in rough shape.”
Priscilla Partridge came home to find large uprooted trees dangling into the yard.
“We just started hearing wind blowing everywhere, thunder and lightning and the power went out at least twice,” Partridge said. “It just went, ‘Wooosh!’ and then everything just went downhill from there.”
Crews from the surrounding area are working to clean up and get things back in order.
“With these trees flying around I’m surprised nothing worse happened,” Richter said.
The National Weather Service will survey the damage to see if the damage was caused by a tornado or a microburst.