As powerful winds began to sweep through our region Wednesday night, many were left without power and are dealing with damages of some sort.
“Things were fine when I went to bed,” Paragon Café Owner, Connie Petersen said.
But in a matter of hours, that all changed for Petersen.
“By 4 o’clock it really woke me up and I could hear the rattling and stuff up above and then the ambulance people called to see if I was OK,” she said.
That phone call was moments after her café’s roof had blown off.
“I’m just thankful nobody was hurt,” Petersen said.
Folks in Minot weren’t immune to the hurricane-force winds either.
Like home renter Stephanie Dunn, who says a tree was just inches from falling on her home.
“I’m actually relieved that it didn’t hit our house or our neighbors and that it just went in our yard,” Dunn said.
Jazmine Schultz, who co-owns Prairie Sky Breads in Minot, was faced with property damage too.
“We opened a little bit early and when the third customer, our third customer of the day, came in and it just grabbed the door and whipped it into the wall and the whole mechanism was just falling,” Schultz said.
From roofs being blown away to downed power lines, to even big rigs tipping over, one Minot man is making an effort to step up and help.
“Some people have had a lot of damage,” Travis Bercier said.
Bercier, who’s a construction worker, says he’s hoping to round up area carpenters willing to volunteer their time to help repair a few things, like roofs, that took damage from the wind.
“I just, I don’t mean to get political or anything, but I just figured that the state of affairs in the world right now that I just kind of thought, if we could show each other a little humanity no matter what side of the fence you’re on,” he said.
He says if you’re willing to help you can contact him directly through his Facebook page.
The National Weather Service suggests that people avoid being outside, especially around trees and on elevated surfaces, and you should use caution if you must travel.
