Winds topple drive-in screen

The Daily Inter Lake

and The Western News

A line of thunderstorms blasted through Lincoln County on Wednesday and severe but sporadic winds knocked down power lines and splintered trees.

The damage ranged from fires to power outages.

"In terms of trees and damage to property, I would say storm damage was pretty mild," said Marc McGill, the Emergency Management Director for Lincoln County. "In terms of repair to electrical service, I would say moderate to severe."

Parts of Libby were still without power Thursday morning, McGill said, and the Woodway Park area seemed hardest hit, with several limbs and trees strewn throughout yards and roads.

The Libby Fire Department responded to 38 storm-related calls, but all were relatively minor, he said.

"Our fire agencies are real busy," McGill said. "They're chasing down smoke reports and knocking down whatever pops up."

There were no reported storm-related injuries.

Four or five trees were knocked down in Troy and the storm seemed to miss Eureka completely, he added.

There was one unconfirmed report of a creek rising above its banks near Silver Butte. Flooding in Libby was due mainly to backed up storm drains.

The storm also toppled more than just trees and utility poles.

One of Montana's last drive-in movie theaters was the most prominent victim of Wednesday's storm in Libby.

At the Libby Drive-In Theatre, winds toppled the 60-foot screen into a children's playground area just an hour before showtime.

"Thank God it didn't happen an hour later," owner Bert Wilson said. "It was crazy. We're pretty shook up about the whole thing."

On Wednesday night, Wilson was in the concession booth with his wife and daughter. They were preparing for the screening of "1408," a new Stephen King film.

"We were just trying to hold the water back. It was coming like ocean waves in the concessions," Wilson said.

They saw debris. His wife, Margee, looked up.

"The screen's gone," she said.

And with it went a 53-year cinematic staple of Northwest Montana.

According to Western News archives, the theater opened to the public on July 8, 1954, with 250 car speakers powered by a 140-watt dual-channel for sound effects.

A Western News write-up from that year read, "The screen has a magnificent background in the Cabinet mountains which raise their high tops in the west, a scene as beautiful as any which will ever be thrown upon the screen itself."

Already Wednesday morning, Libby residents were pondering the future of the theater.

It's too early for Wilson to know, but he and his brother Eric are working with insurance adjusters.

"It's going to be very expensive," Eric said. "Hopefully, we can get it rebuilt. It's a unique thing to have an old drive-in in Libby."

"I don't think I've seen it this bad in the last three years that I've worked here," said meteorologist Victor Stegemiller at the National Weather Service in Missoula.

Other damage was widespread across Libby.

Tree limbs lay strewn across streets and yards, entire uprooted trees rested on top of houses, traffic lights were dead and power disappeared west of Rosauers.

Elaine Howard, who is renting a home on Parmenter Drive, was in her house at the time of the storm when a tree fell on her roof.

"I heard it coming down," she said. "And you know it scared the daylights out of me."

Two men helped remove the tree limbs from her roof and sawed them into pieces.

On Granite Avenue, a tree narrowly missed hitting an unoccupied home. The owner of the home, Jerry Hayes, was out of town.

The full-size tree was uprooted and fell on a telephone line landing in the Hayes' front yard, just missing the home. A brick ring around the trunk of the tree also was uprooted.

Libby city crews were busy trying to repair the damage caused by the storm and to attempt to restore power to all citizens.

Trees were down on powerlines all over town, especially in the Cabinet Heights area near the golf course, according to Libby Mayor Tony Berget. Crews were removing debris from city streets and a cottonwood tree was destroyed at the end of Mineral Avenue, "but we were planning on taking it out anyway," Berget said.

There was more damage outside Libby city limits, Berget added. Several trees fell on power lines and pulled up tin and metal from homes.