Lincoln County declares state of emergency

Two days of rain and melting snow caused widespread flooding near Libby and Troy Wednesday, prompting Libby and Lincoln County officials to declare a state of emergency.

The declaration frees up emergency funding from the state if the county uses up the approximately $60,000 budgeted for that purpose.

Lincoln County Deputy Emergency Manager Lisa Oedewaldt estimated that four to five homes along Callahan Creek near Troy had been affected by flooding as of Wednesday at 5 p.m. Other structures were also flooded.

“Crews opened up a channel to allow water to flow better, rather than backing up,” county Emergency Manager Kirk Kraft said Wednesday afternoon. “We keep monitoring the creeks, but we did have substantial rainfall all night up in the mountains. ... We’re just waiting to see what the rain event will bring us from last night. It takes a while to come down to us.”

Oedewaldt said Libby residents should avoid Trainer Street, which dead-ends at Libby Creek.

“The road is being undercut considerably, and pieces of the road and trees fell off while I was standing there.”

Kraft estimated about 300 feet of Troy’s St. Regis Road had been washed out, along with more minor wash-outs near Keeler Creek and Lake Creek. Part of the Granite Creek Road in Libby had also washed away.

Emergency and road crews in the area monitored rising water levels and used excavators to remove ice and debris collecting on bridges and banks. Trees and other debris were floating down the swollen Callahan Creek, at points backing up against the U.S. 2 bridge.

Lime and Flower creeks were also at flood levels, along with the Fisher River.

A U.S. Geological Survey rain gauge on the Yaak River was registering flows more than 2,100 percent of normal by 5 p.m. Wednesday. The Fisher River near Libby was at more than 1,600 percent.

Both were record highs for that day.

“One of the reports we’re monitoring is the Yaak River,” Kraft said. “We had reports of some small ice jams and log jams, so we’re going to continue monitoring that.”

At Granite Creek, crews were working along the edges of the road and using riprap in an attempt to divert the water back into the channel.

Lincoln County Deputy Emergency Manager Lisa Oedewaldt noted that ice jams at Balsam Bridge over Flower Creek were not as big a concern as years past, given the recent warm weather. She said some ice had been forming at the bridge throughout the day. An ice blockage had given way at around 4 a.m. but had not caused any significant flooding impacts.

“December through January we call our ‘ice jam season,’” Oedewaldt said. “We usually get a spurt of rain and warm temperatures, and that’s what causes the flooding. This year we’re lucky that the ice melted and we don’t have major flooding right now.”

A Wednesday highway report from the Montana Department of Transportation warned of ponding water and debris on Montana 200 from the Idaho state line to Trout Creek. The same warning applied to Montana 56 between Noxon and Bull Lake.

Dan Zumpfe, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Missoula, said Libby and Troy had received up to 1 3/4 inches of rain from the storm, while the mountains north and south of town had gotten between 2 and 3 inches.

Speaking after noon on Wednesday, he said the worst of the rain had tapered off, but some additional precipitation could still be expected.

“The rainfall is definitely not going to be what it has been,” Zumpfe said. “There have been some rain showers throughout the day but they’re certainly not going to add much to the rain totals we’ve seen thus far.”

Warm weather had pushed the freezing level above 7,000 feet earlier in the week, but Zumpfe said colder air would be moving into the area by Wednesday night, with snow falling as low as 2,000 to 3,000 feet by Thursday night.

Reporter Sam Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.