Summer rains flood yards, creeks
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RONAN — The recent onslaught of spring showers has flooded basements and roads and left some Lake County residents anxiously waiting for the sun to dry the saturated fields and overflowing creeks.
Lake County and Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal officials have been monitoring the flows closely this spring, ensuring that flooded lowlands and creeks will have minimal damage on roads or residences.
“We’ve been out in the field and have been looking at stuff,” Office of Emergency Management Coordinator Steve Stanley said.
He added that the irrigation ditches and creeks are full throughout the Flathead Reservation.
From U.S. Highway 93, Crow Creek looks more like a pond than a flowing body of water.
The creek that borders Bev’s Bloomers and runs through the Cates’ and the Luedtkes' properties has overstepped its bounds this year.
But according to locals, it’s not the first time the creek has flowed out of line.
“I’ve lived here since 1949, and there’s been a lot of floods,” Dorothy Bocksnick said.
Her granddaughter Lacy Cates agreed.
Noting that every year the creek floods a few feet, she said they haven’t experienced anything this severe since 2005.
Besides relocating their donkeys to the backyard, Cates and her family haven’t been too inconvenienced by the unruly rains.
They have actually taken advantage of the makeshift lake in their front yard. Her three children have commandeered a canoe and a raft, using the opportunity to play and swim in the slower waters.
But for some Lake County residents, the experience has not been as enjoyable — and at times downright discouraging.
“I was a little frustrated with the lack of resources to help out,” Ronan Assistant Police Chief Art Walgren said.
Walgren, who resides on Canal Road outside Ronan, said all of his neighbors have experienced some damage from the incessant rains. His finished basement was full of water, but when he called the insurance company, they refused to help pay for the damages due to the non-traditional nature of the flood.
Walgren called a friend who owned a janitorial service to pump out the water that flooded his basement.
But for some county residents, the Salish and Kootenai Tribes offered relief.
After a sump pump malfunction, Ronan resident and council member Penny Ross found 1,000 gallons of water in her basement on Tuesday.
Ross discovered a service through the CSKT Maintenance Crew and the CSKT Housing Authority that helps the elderly in such situations. Two workers, Anthony Plant and Chad Hendrickson, came to her rescue on Wednesday at 9 a.m.
The water was up to the crawl space door when they arrived and the pair worked for two days straight, pumping the water out of the basement and into a manhole in the street.
Finally, by 5 p.m. on Thursday, Ross was left with a few puddles in her relatively dry basement.
Not all Lake County communities were affected by the flooding. According to Stanley, the flooding has been confined to the Ronan area and south of town. Minor flooding happens in Lake County every few years, he said.
“Lake County is pretty flood resistant,” Stanley said. “We don’t have a lot of flooding, but when we have high runoff or a lot of rain, we will have some.”
He added that waters will be high for the next few weeks, depending on the amount of precipitation and when farmers decide to start irrigating.
Other departments who are monitoring the floods are the Lake County Road and Bridge Department and the CSKT Fire Management Division.
