MISSOULA – Missoula turned into a wind tunnel on July 24 with speeds exceeding 80 miles per hour.

Since then, emergency services have been working hard to repair the damage, which many people thought was like a tree accident.

“This is the worst we’ve ever experienced. We have a few storms every year, but nothing of this magnitude,” said Marie Ducharme, project specialist for the Missoula City Forestry Department.

Ducharme told MTN that normally certain types of trees fall in different ways, but this storm blew all of that away. “At speeds over 117 km/h, any healthy tree can fall,” she explained.

During the storm, trees were uprooted and huge falling branches left thousands without power and cars trapped or destroyed.

Aborist and Mountain Tree Company owner Cooper Elwood said he watched the storm from his porch and saw huge trees fall.

“I was standing right in front of my house and saw a bunch of trees fall. There was a bunch of spruce trees right next to it, and they went over Clements, completely blocking it off and taking down a bunch of power lines.”

The City of Missoula has what is called a municipal forest and a plan to manage these trees.

“So, in terms of species, I think we have about 78 species and with all the varieties it’s about 258. We have an inventory of about 35,000 trees that we manage. We update our inventory regularly,” explained Ducharme.

Emily Brown/MTN News

Trees bring so much to the people of Missoula.

“The environmental benefits, the climate benefits, and then we also think about the socio-cultural or health benefits for the community,” explains Susan Teitelman, a climate resilience specialist with Climate Smart Missoula’s Trees for Missoula program.

If the trees in the city forest show damage, arborists come to solve the problem.

The day after the storm, Elwood received over 125 emergency calls. Since then, work has not let up.

“We’re just moving forward and trying to stay safe at this point. But yeah, we haven’t really taken a break yet,” he said.

That’s because Missoula’s urban forest suffered all kinds of damage, from drooping branches to trees being completely torn in half.

“We’re studying about 430 trees that have been identified as felled trees. And then we also have some that have already been felled. So we’re cataloging those stumps. And we’re still collecting that data by re-exploring and re-surveying,” Ducharme explained.

Emily Brown/MTN News

For many, the cleanup effort was overwhelming and the loss of foliage was sad. “The tree people I know are all talking to each other and we’re really grieving right now,” Ducharme said.

With the removal of the destroyed trees comes the hope of a plan to revitalize the urban forests and allow new roots to grow.

“Grief and subsequent action go hand in hand. It’s a wonderful opportunity because people are thinking about trees now,” Teitelman said.

“We are working on updating our design manual, which will happen this year. And that includes the list of approved street trees,” Ducharme added. Climate-adaptive species are our main goal and we want to make sure that the plants we plant now will also be climate-adaptive for the next 100 years.”

People can volunteer with programs like Trees for Missoula or learn tree care techniques to help revitalize Missoula’s urban forest.