a sad day for bozeman...

above you will see what's left of a portion of downtown bozeman. it was a very sad day for our town.

when i was driving to work this morning i noticed a very large cloud of black smoke over downtown so i switched on the radio and heard the news. there was a major explosion caused by a gas leak at a downtown restaurant, boodles. the gas leak exploded boodles and the surrounding businesses at 8:12 am this morning. to make matters worse the building then caught on fire and it's almost five now and the fire is still burning because the fire department can't find the gas shut-off and they'd rather let the fire consume the excess gas than let it pool.

downtown bozeman is a staple of our town. it's beautiful. the rug gallery, the rockin' r bar, pickle barrel, boodles, the legion bar, the art gallery and lilly lu's is completely gone (as seen in picture). since downtown is so old the fire department and police department haven't gone into the destruction to look for survivors because they aren't sure the buildings surround the devastation are structurally sound. i just pray no one was there...

i've been filing insurance claims for downtown businesses all day. windows were blown out of all the buildings within 5 blocks. there is debris everywhere. city officals have said it looks like a bomb went off downtown. the initial explosion blew cars 10 feet into the air and store fronts for boodles and the gallery were blown into the middle of main street.

this explosion made national news - i watched it with kev on fox news at lunch. i've got to hand it to the city officials. for small town montana they did a great job.

i will miss the pickle barrel oh so much. rest in peace sweet pickle paradise.