Crow residents inspect damage, brace for more rain

BILLINGS (AP) — Flood waters have receded enough for Crow Indian tribal members to return to their devastated homes, while cities and towns across Montana trying to stave off rivers and streams spilling from their banks braced for more rain.

Flood war

AP Photo/The Billings Gazette, David Grubbs

Shadd Cullinan and Tammie McCormick, both owners of businesses in downtown Lodgegrass, Mont., toss food into a dumpster Tuesday at the local IGA food market. The food was damaged by flood waters and had to be destroyed.

nings have been issued for dozens of Montana counties as the rain and melting snowpack caused waterways across the state to rise rapidly.

Joe Lester, a National Weather Service meteorologist based in Billings, said Tuesday night the rain had tapered somewhat after a record deluge in hard-hit southeastern Montana, but the overall weather pattern could bring new systems to the area through the weekend.

"Things are still evolving," he said. "There is still rainfall occurring and a lot of rain that needs to get where it needs to go. We're going to have problems for several days."

He said Billings received more than 3 inches of rain on Tuesday, a single-day precipitation record.

Two people have died after being swept away by flooding and Interstate 90 remained closed Wednesday from Hardin to the Wyoming state line, isolating communities along that 60-mile stretch.

The relief effort has been most intense for the 7,000 people on the Crow reservation. Hundreds of people fled the rural reservation in recent days after the Little Bighorn River rose and inundated several communities.

Tribal officials say the flooding has damaged at least 50 homes on the reservation and left dozens of families homeless. Many residents have been able to return to the reservation only to find their homes a total loss.

AP Photo/The Billings Gazette, David Grubbs

Kirstyn Enemy Hunter 9, rides her bike in the flood waters in downtown Lodgegrass Tuesday. The water had started to recede.

A damage estimate and an exact number of families affected are difficult to assess, tribal chairman Cedric Black Eagle said.

Many of the state's big rivers were over or near flood stage, including portions of the Missouri, Yellowstone, Big Hole, Dearborn, Musselshell and Milk rivers.

In central and northern Montana, flooding was widespread in Fergus, Judith Basin, Petroleum, Phillips and Valley counties, where many roads were closed or washed out, according to the state Disaster and Emergency Services.

The Milk River was 3 feet above flood stage near Dodson, and residents in parts of Fergus County have been cut off by washed-out roads, officials said.

Limited evacuations were ordered along central Montana's Musselshell River on Tuesday, and officials in Ryegate were scrambling to reinforce a dike that shields the low-lying town of 300 people from the river.