Remember When

54 YEARS AGO • JUNE 11, 1964

RAGING STREAMS CAUSE MAJOR DAMAGE TO ROADS, BRIDGES

With smaller streams slowly receding, efforts in Sanders County Wednesday were being turned toward repairing damage to roads, bridges and culverts while attention was being maintained on the main Clark Fork River.

The flow of the river over the Montana Power Co. dam Wednesday morning had reached 117,500 cubic feet per second (cfs) and was still rising. This represented an increase of 20,000 cfs since Monday afternoon. Only the 1950 and 1948 high water flows surpassed Wednesday morning’s flow here and the report was, “more is coming.”

Just when the crest of the flow will pass Thompson Falls could not be predicted. Kalispell reported the crest of its flood waters had passed into Flathead Lake Tuesday night. Normally, it requires about 30 hours for water released at Kerr dam to reach Thompson Falls.

Also heading toward Thompson Falls is the flood water from the Missoula area where the Clark Fork was receding late Tuesday.

Meanwhile, most of the damage from the high waters in Sanders County occurred to roads and bridges.

Probably the two hardest hit were the Blue Slide and the West Fork of Thompson River roads.

On the Blue Slide, the swift moving waters tore out huge chunks at Cougar Gulch and Deep Creek isolating families who lived between there and Vermilion River. The bridge over Vermilion was restricted to foot traffic only as the span was weakened dangerously. I was told by old-time Blue Slide residents that the county brought old car bodies from the car dump that was located where Thompson Falls High School now is and dumped them over the hill for fill and covered them with rock and gravel to stabilize the washout at Cougar Gulch.

The West Fork of Thompson River tore numerous chunks out of the road paralleling it and John Oliver said the destruction cost his firm $50,000.

The extent of damage in the main Thompson River drainage could not be determined immediately since the rampaging river blocked travel above the West fork. The Anaconda Co. road was impassable also. Loggers were forced to cut a new channel through the south approach of the bridge Monday night to save the span about a half mile north of Highway 10A (now Highway 200).

Reports were that the Anaconda Co. road had been washed out in a couple of spots higher up as well.

The culvert on Cherry Creek was one of the first to go Monday. This isolated the Harvey Curran and H.R. Saint families. Tuesday county crews installed a foot bridge across the creek.

Graves creek was reported to have washed out several sections of the Graves Creek road between the falls and the Blue Slide road.

Forest Service personnel spent Tuesday surveying flood damage to spots which could be reached.

Water tore out a section of the road up Cougar Peak above the Bill McNorton place and sent rocks tumbling down on to the old buildings.

Little damage to private property was reported, however. Water racing down the hill behind the new home being built by Ben G. Cox west of Belknap flooded his well and floated his wellhouse and pump a short distance away.

Several residents along the river had to move water pumps and other equipment to higher ground.

Damage occurred to the Paradise-St. Regis cutoff road Monday morning between the Harwood House and the bridge. County road crews were busy at work repairing the damage. Blocking off the cut-off coupled with a wash out west of Dixon forced county residents traveling to Missoula to detour via Elmo and Polson.

The flooding conditions closed down all logging operations in the area.

Water across the Thompson River road just upstream from the Anaconda bridge isolated families in the Snider and Copper King communities for a while Monday night and early Tuesday morning. However, by Tuesday afternoon the water had receded and residents once again could drive into the two communities.

Despite the high water in the Clark Fork River, little damage has been reported to date. Some flooding of farm land has been reported in the Plains area and the No. 1 green and portions of the No. 1 and No. 2 fairways of the River’s Bend Golf Course were under several feet of water from Monday, morning on. It likely will be several days before the water recedes and the amount of damage caused can be assessed.

The flooding is the result of heavy, warm rains Sunday and Monday falling on an above average snowpack in the mountains. Rainfall recorded by the Montana Power Co. during the 24-hour period totaled 2.23 inches.