Strong winds blow landscape office into pond

BOZEMAN, Mont. -- A couple arrived for work at their new landscaping business only to find that their office wasn't there.

The modular trailer had been blown into a nearby pond the night before when a powerful wind roared through the area.

"I told my wife she should have paid the office bill because it's gone," said Bob Norton. His wife Julia Royston owns J&B Rock and Landscape Materials west of town.

Norton and Royston said plans to open their new decorative rock and landscape materials business on Monday probably will have to be put on hold.

"I'd give you a business card, but they're a little wet," Norton said.

He estimated the modular unit weighed 10,000 pounds. He and Royston hooked it up to a loader and towed it closer to shore and then used a float tube to reach it in hopes of retrieving anything salvageable. A business desk floated out and sank in the middle of the pond.

--From wire reports