Powell contractors assist Baker, Montana, with tornado repairs

Posted 6/21/16

“It was total destruction, it was phenomenal,” said Dustin Short, owner of Everlast Metal in Powell. “To see an EF-3 tornado hit, it is pretty mind blowing.”

“It literally blew up some houses here,” said Baker resident Martin Nelson. …

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Powell contractors assist Baker, Montana, with tornado repairs

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Six homes were destroyed and 50 were damaged by an EF-3 tornado that struck Baker, Montana, on June 11. Before the dust completely settled, a team of Powell contractors was on the scene to help with repairs — free of charge.

“It was total destruction, it was phenomenal,” said Dustin Short, owner of Everlast Metal in Powell. “To see an EF-3 tornado hit, it is pretty mind blowing.”

“It literally blew up some houses here,” said Baker resident Martin Nelson. “My neighbors are nothing left but a slab. Nobody was killed, so count that as a positive.”

Although it’s a small town more than 300 miles away from Powell in eastern Montana, its connection to Powell contractors with Everlast Metal was strong enough to send three locals over to help with the storm’s aftermath.

“We were more concerned about friends and seeing how everyone was,” Short said. “We weren’t looking for anything out of it; you know what I mean, just there to help friends. Everyone needs to come together in times of need.”

About a year ago, Everlast did some roofing for Nelson and worked on several other Baker homes.

“We got quite a few friends in Baker, you know, so we went over to help them,” Short said.

When the tornado hit, Short said he started making calls and checking on people he knew there while on a pre-Father’s Day family trip in Billings.

“They were trying to figure out how they were going to take care of it, so we loaded up to see if there was anything we could do,” Short said, adding that he knows the county commissioner in Baker — so he, Raul Martinez and Eddy Reynoso were the second contractors allowed on the scene.

“You go to that, a town of 1,200 people, and you damage 50 homes, it is a big deal,” Short said. “It was a lot of people that were displaced from their homes they grew up in or spent their life building and repairing.”

The trio showed up with a trailer full of plywood and supplies to fix windows and do repairs. Nelson’s home didn’t lose any shingles, but the roof’s trusses were damaged. His home was hit hard enough to separate the walls, Nelson said.

“He brought his crew to go to everyone he sold a roof to to fix everything, and he wouldn’t take any money for it,” Nelson said. “He went to everyone and if he saw someone in need, he would help them — I think that was impressive.”

Short said that he, Martinez and Reynoso boarded up houses, fixed broken windows and helped clean up the neighborhoods for a couple of days and returned to Powell on June 13 in the evening.

“They were just appreciative and they said ‘you don’t understand what it means to all of us that you are here,’” Short said. “We didn’t come for a big thank you to make ourselves look good. Our intention was to help friends in a time of need. My view of it is, that is what more of is needed today. A lot of people go, ‘It is not my problem,’ or ‘I won’t spend money to help anyone,’ and everyone is wanting something. I think if everyone went about it differently, the world would be a different place.”

“He said he would finish the houses as fast as he can, and I never saw him again,” Nelson said. “You got a good man up there in that country.”

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