How UM Avoided Millions in Damage From Missoula Storm

Through advance planning, and also some luck, the University of Montana came through the July 24th thunderstorm in Missoula relatively unscathed.

While the campus lost some of its stately trees, the university's backup systems have prevented the loss of millions of dollars worth of vaccines, lab samples, and artifacts.

That could have been a major setback to UM, where its research facilities are playing an increasing role in protecting human health and studying the environment.

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Storm damage and a backup plan

"We didn't lose very much at all if anything, and we're still kind of assessing that," UM spokesman Dave Kuntz tells me. "We do have some backup generators that the facilities team (say) performed wonderfully. We're were able to get up and going on some of our key research labs."

A complete loss of power could have been devastating for the school, which has been doing cutting-edge research on everything from viral issues to a vaccine for opioid addictions. Plus, priceless collections of Montana's natural, and human, history.

"We do have world-class vaccine research, medicine research," explains Kuntz. "We have a lot of anthropology-type materials that need to be in certain humidity. And so really we went through the list of things through the Research Office to make sure that all of the facilities that needed power were able to keep it."

"We were able to keep all the research activities up and running despite the power, which is a big deal because as you know, some of these research enterprises have been going on for many years."

UM campus was still hit hard

That's not to say there wasn't a lot of storm damage on campus. Many of the locations' landmark conifers came crashing down, narrowly missing buildings. And like everyone, there's a been a lot of debris to clean up. Still, Kuntz says the school was able to get more services up and running for the 700 working on campus this time of the year within a day.   

Now, UM staff are tallying up the damage that did occur for an insurance claim.

"We believe any sort of damage, even some of our from our trees to any food that was lost to any research that was disrupted will be covered in that insurance claim."

"And, make sure that some of the things that were damaged and lost are repaired, Kuntz says. "But all in all, we feel very lucky to have so many trees come down on campus with so little damage to our facility."