A Flood of Remembrances

Living on the Milk River bottom all my life, something you learn to expect and accept as part of life are the floods. I don’t think you ever really get used to them, as each presents a different challenge.

I have memories back to grade school days of the floods – the enjoyment of getting to stay home from school for a few days until it became apparent the water was not going to recede quickly.

Dad and Uncle Lee walked the distance of the road under water and staked the sides so you knew where you were on the road. They then went through the water part of the way in the pickup and had to walk a board catwalk over a washout next to the river bridge to get onto Uncle Glen Dix’s tractor, which carried us the last part through the deep water between the bridges. Mostly I remember the power of that rushing water while we were walking over that makeshift bridge – something I never forgot.

One of the big negatives of having the road closed for any length of time was that the bulk milk truck couldn’t get to some of the local dairies that still existed in the 50s and 60s – one of which was ours. I can remember my dad and uncle separating hundreds of gallons of milk to get the cream to try and salvage something since the sour cream was at least worth a little, but then after all the cream cans were filled, any more milk had to be dumped down the drain at a substantial loss. Clayton Long was one of the bulk truck drivers back then who braved the flooded roads as much as he could to get everyone’s product out.

Later, as a deputy sheriff and sheriff, I saw the floods from both sides - by being a first responder part of the time and by being stranded by the flood myself. I think the biggest positive I saw during the floods was the Montana camaraderie and the willingness of everyone to pitch in, help a neighbor or anyone in need, from helping to rescue stranded individuals, to moving livestock to high ground, to the hundreds of volunteers that would come out to help fill sandbags to just buying supplies for each other when someone made a trip to town. So many helped each other.

One spring flood where the water was up high, several in the south valley bench were running low on a few items and at the same time Mary Aitken’s chickens were laying an abundance of eggs (we’d have never starved, always had Mary’s eggs). Bill contacted Gene Etchart, who flew in and landed his plane on the Aitken road just south of Bill and Mary’s. We unloaded supplies and Gene loaded up eggs and off he went. If we needed anything we just had to put in our order.

This had been a bad snow year, so with the main roads under water, the backroads were still closed by drifts. I used a saddle horse to go through the drifts and haul some food and prescriptions over to Mrs. Hanneson, who lived where Bill and Iva Murch live now.

I believe that was also the year that Ted McIntyre was camping with Bill and Mary so he could calve, since McIntyres had to move all their cattle out of their calving corrals that were under water and so were calving on the prairie near Aitken’s. Mary, being the host she was, was afraid that all of us were going to starve to death I guess, because she invited us up to her house very night to feed us.

While Mary fed us, Bill told stories of past floods. The one I remember best is how his brothers got bored being stuck overlooking the flooded Willow Creek. Wanting to go to town, they built a rat out of planks and barrels, used shovels for paddles and took off across the Willow Creek Valley. Things went good until their raft began breaking apart, but they luckily made it to shore.

And over the years, many besides Mary stepped up and did the same entertaining, everyone with some type of specialty meal. If I remember right, we ate caribou at one meal and everyone emptied out all the old Christmas/birthday gift bottles from their liquor cabinet so no one ran dry.

Eric Phillip’s place, which used to be the old Franzen place, was centralized in the community and became the center of many evening gatherings. My wife, Bobbie, who always had to stay in town so she could get to work, said she always felt left out about missing the big party it seemed we were all having. If it wasn’t having a barbecue at Eric’s or See’s, it was boating with Macy and Toby Klind, checking out the flood (during which one trip we found some stranded bulls and were able to notify the owner who got them out). With all the food and drink, no one lost any weight, that’s for sure. But, it was sure good company during a time when there was little else you could do.

And 30 years ago, in 1986, at about the same time as this 2016 rainstorm and flood, we had another rainstorm and October flood – where the water went over the road on Oct. 3 and didn’t recede until Oct. 14. Things weren’t bad at first because the Beaver Creek access road was passable, although it meant a normal 4-mile drive became 60+ miles, but then on the 8th it rained again and made that route impossible, too.

I remember that well because Bobbie was pregnant with Carla and had to stay in town because I didn’t want her going into labor on the wrong side of the river. The evening of Oct. 13, the water was low enough and receding to where I brought her home to spend the night and get some clothes. The morning of the 14th, I took her to FMDH where Carla was born by C-section.

The most challenging and frustrating flood had to be 2011, the year the rains wouldn’t stop. Just when you thought things were going to get better, they got worse. All you could do was sit, wait and pray. And the longer the water stayed up and the more people had to travel through it, the worse the roadbed got. I was in a pickle on how to get my bulls out since more rain was predicted the next day. I had some bulls that I needed to get out with the cows and one I had sold. I talked to Jimmy Uphaus, who was in the same spot, so he hooked onto his stock trailer with his tractor and loaded bulls. Then he pulled it through the rising waters with me right behind in the 4-wheel drive pickup with my bedroll, clothes, 4-wheeler and dogs in it. Jimmy pulled the trailer out to the stockyards, where Iva let us sort bulls and I hooked onto his trailer and we hauled Jimmy’s south, mine north, and left a couple I sold at the stockyards for the buyers to come get.

Since all the cattle were north, and since while following Jimmy out, I hit the deep hole in the road before the bridge, the hood of my pickup went out of sight under the water. I’d had enough flood driving, so the dogs and I stayed at the north place for over a month, then the water went down. I remember calling the weather bureau daily (or a couple times a day) on my cell phone, asking them what the river levels were, hoping and praying it would start dropping so I could sleep in my bed at home again. And since the water kept rising, Bobbie got Bill Murch to move my feed truck up on the hill so at least if the yard went under it wouldn’t too. With the help of Joe Horn and his airboat, she and the kids were able to go back and forth and check on things. Luckily we had no damage.

Then, later that year after things all settled down, Bill, Iva and Cowboy Murch hosted the South Bench Survivors Barbecue and Community Get-together, which we’ve had re-enactments of since. Just a chance for everyone to get together again and remember the flood of 2011.

I think the greatest change I’ve seen in 60 years is with the weather bureau and their improvement in their ability to predict and warn folks of the impending problems. Definitely better to be over prepared than under prepared.