Hey folks. Apparently, the state of Montana is on a royal streak of downtown fires. After Bozeman lost an entire block as well as Whitehall in the past 2 weeks, we sadly announce that today an entire block of Miles City's downtown is burning as we type. Since so many of us out here are busily checking the latest news, here are links:
Miles City Forum (notes, pictures, video)
Miles City Star Newspaper (no coverage yet; they are a little occupied since it is right across the st)
Billings Gazette
Dave's Flickr Site
Pickles Flickr Site
View of block pre-fire
This is the block that housed The Celler Bar & Casino, Good Things, The Copper Thimble, Stockhill Jewelers, Family Floral, Big Sky Drug, Burlap & Lace and numerous upstairs apartments. For those of you not familiar with the area, "Miles" is our closest large-scale shopping destination just under 100 miles from the house. Anne frequently supported her quilting habit at Thimble as well as bought clothes at Burlap & Lace, our family shopped for Christmas presents at Good Things, and did business with Stockhill Jewelers. It is rumored that Big Sky Drug is still standing and not currently engulfed - more as we get the info. We are headed to Miles City later this week and will get some photos. Various fire departments from as far away as Glendive have been called to the scene, including calls to our Jordan's City Volunteer Dept. As far as we know, Eric is not planning to go at this point (read: mothers and relatives don't panic!) but they are fighting wind gusts of up to 38 mph. Not an easy job!
In any case, send good thoughts in the direction of Eastern Montana!
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ReplyDeleteI finally broke down and cried, when we were praying over our meal, and praying for the firefighters. I can hardly STAND it! But I'm glad you posted this.
ReplyDeleteSubject: RE: Fire! Main Street is burning again.....
ReplyDeleteAuthor: Tucker Bolton Posted: 3/23/2009 4:10:23 PM From: [United States] - MT
Miles City at its finest during a time of tragedy. I was so pleased to see the people that showed up with boxes, bags and helping hearts and hands to help clean out Big Sky Pharmacy. It was ordered chaos but it worked and I am sure saved a ton. The trailer came, people loaded, people came with more boxes and more merchandise was saved. I don't know who they were, I doubt if they knew me but it was people helping people. I can only hope that the attitude I saw today will continue to see us through this tragedy.
I read about the tragedy on my friend's blog. Her family recently moved to Miles City from Florida.
ReplyDeletehttp://diamond5.blogspot.com/2009/03/tragic-in-small-town.html
Our family is praying for the community during this time of grest loss.