Missoula Fire Chief on Community Response After Storm

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - One of the important pieces of information that Missoula City Fire Chief Gordy Hughes related to KGVO Talk Back listeners following Wednesday night’s severe thunderstorm was to ask Missoulians to look after their neighbors.

“What I would like to express is concern for our neighbors, and the personal well-being of members of our community” began Hughes. “That being said, I know that we had a power outage in the majority of the Missoula Valley. So, we encourage people t people to be neighborly and check in on their neighbors; especially those with special needs, and mobility issues, such as elderly folks.”

Hughes said all Missoulians should be helping, especially in case of a loss of power in the neighborhood.

“There will be concerns about a loss of power and people who may depend upon medical equipment to sustain their health,” he said. “So, please be neighborly and check on their health.”

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Hughes then turned his attention to transportation.

“Our next concern is with traffic flow through town,” he said. “Traffic control is down in a majority of the city, so we ask that people be patient and limit travel to emergency trips only. Please slow down and watch for emergency traffic.”

Hughes said work is ongoing to clean up the mess from Wednesday night’s severe thunderstorm.

“We’ve got saw crews throughout town taking care of downed trees, and of course, power companies working on restoring electricity,” he said. “The best we can do for those folks is to limit travel as much as possible.”

Winds reached over 80 miles per hour in Missoula on Wednesday night, with a gust of 120 miles per hour on the top of Mount Sentinel.