Bemidji family still displaced nearly a year after derecho storm
Still living in an Airbnb and hotel rooms, a Bemidji family says insurance delays have kept them out of their home nearly a year after the derecho.
Montgomery MacGown, Jennifer MacGown and their two sons are still bouncing between temporary housing nearly a year after the June 21, 2025 derecho ripped through Bemidji. For months, the family lived in hotels, squeezed into two rooms with three large dogs, and later moved into a small Airbnb that is still too cramped.
Their home remains down to subflooring, with no working bathrooms, no kitchen and no finished roof. Kayla MacGown organized a fundraiser that had raised just over $2,200 toward an $18,000 goal, a small fraction of what the family still needs to get back home. The family says its insurer has pushed back on repairs “every step of the way,” leaving the work stalled while rent, hotel bills and other temporary housing costs keep adding up in a market where rooms and rentals have been hard to find.
The storm hit in the early morning hours of Saturday, June 21, 2025, when the National Weather Service reported a 107 mph gust at Bemidji Airport. In the broader Beltrami County damage area, winds were reported as high as 120 mph. More than 50,000 people lost power, and Bemidji and Beltrami County both declared states of emergency as trees and power lines fell across neighborhoods, roads and commercial areas.
Beltrami County Emergency Management Director Christopher Muller later estimated damage at about $8.3 million and said the county did not qualify for a federal disaster declaration. That left state reimbursement to cover 75% of eligible public damage costs, a structure that can help local governments but does little for homeowners still waiting on insurance settlements, contractors and permits.
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar visited Bemidji on July 25, 2025, and toured damaged sites including Diamond Point Park and the Sanford Center. She said nearly every home suffered some damage and about nine million trees were lost. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources later said at least 11,600 acres of forest were damaged in the Bemidji area, showing how the June blowdown became more than a cleanup problem: it became a housing crisis, a financial strain and a long test of how recovery works, or fails, in Beltrami County.
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