![]() ![]() 2 bridge shortly thereafter, cutting off all ground transportation across the Divide. Bob and Ray Smith stayed on the main bridge into the park all day, pushing logs away.”Īt 5:25 a.m., just east of Essex, the Middle Fork washed out a 200-foot section of the Great Northern railroad line. Divide Creek was a roaring river with big trees and rocks coming down. “We had to stay at the old 1913 ranger station,” Ann recalled. On Bear Creek, just west of the Continental Divide, the water scoured slopes down to bedrock, stripping them clear of trees, picking up massive boulders and tearing away part of the highway.īy Monday morning, June 8, Glacier National Park Ranger Bob Frauson and his wife, Ann, were evacuating their home in St. Quiet streams turned into boiling cauldrons. Storms from the east and northeast combined with moisture-laden clouds from the south to produce a 37-hour torrent of rain - warm rain that cut through the deep, wet snowpack like a hot iron. It wasn’t too bad down in the valley - a half-inch or so out at the airport.īut in the mountains it was a deluge: Essex got 11 inches in 30 hours Marias Pass got 15.5 inches by Monday night.Ĭlimatologists later determined that three storm systems had collided over the northern Rockies. However, we don’t look for that to happen - very rarely does snowmelt by itself cause flooding. On May 7, National Weather Service climatologist Richard Dightman issued the following caution: “We aren’t in trouble unless we get a sudden warming and the snowpack melts all at once. ![]() At least two new record lows were set during the month, and it wasn’t until just before Memorial Day weekend that the high temperatures broke 70 degrees. There was a lot of snow up there that spring.”Īs of May 1, gauges across Northwest Montana were registering snow depths as much as 75 percent above average, with above-average water content.įour days later, after storms dumped up to 13 inches of snow across the western half of the state, it already was the second-snowiest May on record, with more snow in the forecast. Old Rude Voss used to say that when the snow was gone from that ridge, we didn’t have to worry about flooding anymore. “We had a snow gauge up on the ridge above the farm. “The ground was completely saturated,” Dalimata recalled. John Dalimata, whose family farmed 800 acres in the Nyack Valley along the Middle Fork, said there was plenty of snow in the mountains that year plus cool spring weather that delayed any runoff. ![]() Still, no one was prepared for what happened in ’64. Old-timers said that event “backed water up from Flathead Lake almost to Kalispell.” However, the biggest flood in anyone’s living memory was in 1894, when the Flathead River roared through the valley at a monstrous 142,000 cfs, more than eight feet above flood stage. The flow at Columbia Falls peaked at 102,000 cfs, with a crest of 19.5 feet, 5.5 feet above flood stage. Just 10 years earlier, peak flows along the main stem of the Flathead River topped 69,000 cubic feet per second - more than double the average flow during spring runoff and 50 percent higher than the flood stage flow of 47,000 cfs.Ī 100-year flood - one of five that hit the Flathead during the preceding 50 years - took place on May 23, 1948. Nothing remotely like it had happened before, ever since white settlers first moved into the Flathead in the mid-1800s. Another was over-topped.Īt least 28 people died and more than 2,200 homes and buildings were damaged or destroyed in seven counties and a dozen communities in Montana. Water poured down both sides of the Continental Divide, tearing out roadways and rail lines and ripping away bridges. When torrential rains poured on top of a heavy mountain snowpack on June 8-9, 1964, it caused, by some measures, one of the most powerful flash floods in the United States during the 20th century. It is being re-run because of the current flood potential. Powerful flash floods in the United States during the 20thĮditor’s note: This story first was published in 2004, the 40th anniversary of the disastrous 1964 flood. On June 8-9, 1964, it caused, by some measures, one of the most When torrential rains poured on top of a heavy mountain snowpack Much of Evergreen was left under water in June 1964 when the Flathead River, swollen by torrential rains and melting snow, unleashed a monster flood. ![]()
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