County Commissioners declare state of emergency
Megan Strickland
Lake County Commissioners declared a state of emergency for the county, which will enable them to access emergency funding resources.
Megan Strickland
The more navigable parts of washed out Walking Horse Lane are asphalt that was ground into gravel in recent floods. The formerly gravel parts of the road are now sand and mud.
Megan Strickland
Weight limits have been imposed on some county roads to keep erosion from worsening.
Megan Strickland
The more navigable parts of washed out Walking Horse Lane are asphalt that was ground into gravel in recent floods. The formerly gravel parts of the road are now sand and mud.
Megan Strickland
The more navigable parts of washed out Walking Horse Lane are asphalt that was ground into gravel in recent floods. The formerly gravel parts of the road are now sand and mud.
Megan Strickland
The more navigable parts of washed out Walking Horse Lane are asphalt that was ground into gravel in recent floods. The formerly gravel parts of the road are now sand and mud.
Megan Strickland
The more navigable parts of washed out Walking Horse Lane are asphalt that was ground into gravel in recent floods. The formerly gravel parts of the road are now sand and mud.
Megan Strickland
The more navigable parts of washed out Walking Horse Lane are asphalt that was ground into gravel in recent floods. The formerly gravel parts of the road are now sand and mud.
Megan Strickland
The more navigable parts of washed out Walking Horse Lane are asphalt that was ground into gravel in recent floods. The formerly gravel parts of the road are now sand and mud.
Megan Strickland
The more navigable parts of washed out Walking Horse Lane are asphalt that was ground into gravel in recent floods. The formerly gravel parts of the road are now sand and mud.
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LAKE COUNTY — County commissioners declared a state of emergency last week that will allow them to tap into emergency funding resources to repair what officials estimate to be hundreds of thousands of dollars in infrastructure damage caused by recent floods.
Jay Garrick, Lake County Road and Bridge department supervisor, said the exact costs and extent of the damage was unknown as of March 11, but is expected to exceed the $25,000 in the county’s emergency account.
By declaring an emergency, the commissioners will first deplete the current account, and then vote on whether or not to levy up to two mils that would provide approximately $150,000. Taxpayers will see the levy on next year’s tax bill.
“Depending on how the rest of this season goes, maybe we’ll be lucky and have a slow melt and you’ll just get away with using that money and won’t have to do a mil or two mils. You’ll just have to do a mil or just a portion of a mil to cover those costs,” said Martha Smith, district representative for Montana State Disaster and Emergency Services.
Garrick estimated the cost of repairs to be at least $75,000, but Emergency Services Coordinator Steve Stanley said he wouldn’t be surprised if costs went as high as $500,000. Walking Horse Lane alone might cost hundreds of thousands of dollars because of a washed out bridge.
If the price of repairs exceeds the amount raised by a two-mil levy, the county can then apply to the governor’s office for additional funding. Governor Bullock declared a statewide emergency on March 10, when 30 of the 56 Montana counties were under flood watch or warning.
It may take months to repair the damage in Lake County, where flooding was spread out oddly in places that don’t normally flood.
“It’s dotted all over,” Garrick said.
Walking Horse Lane is the hardest hit area.
“Walking Horse Lane is not a road anymore,” Commissioner Bill Barron said. “It’s like an off-road four-wheel drive trail. You couldn’t drive a car down it or a pickup.”
Crews were out making emergency patches last week to get by, but the county is ill equipped to begin full repairs at this time of year, Garrick said. Equipment is still geared for winter weather and needs to remain that way until the danger of snow passes.
“We can’t take the plows off to haul gravel,” Barron said. The county’s staff has been working around the clock for several months to the point where several workers were sick last week. There’s not enough staff or equipment to patch roads in widespread areas, which means the county will likely have to contract outside labor.
“Our stuff’s old and probably wouldn’t stand up to the rigors of this kind of work,” Garrick said.
County officials weighed when the long-term road repair should begin. Peak flood season usually hits in April, and recent floods already washed away some of the newer gravel on roads. It could be counterproductive to repair a road, only for it to be washed away again.
“If we rebuild these things now, we might be rebuilding things twice,” Commissioner Ann Brower said.
Road conditions might also be made worse, not better, if the county doesn’t wait to begin repairs.
“If we go and take a grader to some of these places now and lose any stability we have left, then people might be wallowing through muck,” Garrick said. “We might make an even bigger mess.”
Depending on the weather, it could be as late as July before some areas dry out for crews to move in.
The commissioners might hire another person to help track expenses so it can better access state funds.
In the interim, if flooding increases, Stanley said it might be best to purchase two loads of sand to dump for public access in Rollins and Finley Point. While this sand is unavailable as of yet, the county does have 400,000 empty sand bags available for public use.
