Bozeman Explosion

What can one say about what happened yesterday? Walking across the parking lot after I arrived at work I witnessed Bozeman's biggest crisis. I heard a very loud 'kaboom', then felt a huge concussion which actually felt like a smack on the side of the head, then out of the corner of my eye saw a roof or something fly up into the air from behind the hill where the cemetery is and saw a black mushroom cloud. At first I thought plane crash, then train crash, then earthquake and last of all, explosion. My last assumption was correct. It is a miracle that only one life was lost. It was a miracle that it happened when it did 8:13 am. Boodles restaurant was still closed. So were the other stores. If it had happened later in the morning or afternoon, it would have been a unthinkable. Now the buildings are all gone, over 100 years old and in a split second, gone. It's odd how when a catastrophe happens, especially close to home, it rattles everyone to the core. I sensed a very on edge attitude all day among my coworkers. We will get through this, but the spirit of the residents is shaken to the core, but already a community is united.