Soggy Northern Plains braces for 2nd slug of water (AP)

Saturday, May 28, 2011 2:01 AM By dwi

LODGE GRASS, Mont. – Montana residents struggled against distributed broad that could waffle for several weeks as the soggy Northern Plains supported for the batch humour to move from higher elevations.

Gov. Brian missioner warned that it could be a period before broad dissipates in whatever areas of Montana.

Forecasters said weekday that heavy rains in the land over the pass weekend followed by warming defy module probable speed up snowmelt and add to an inundation.

Authorities hit already started emotional large volumes of liquid from overburdened reservoirs.

The releases coupled with the floodwaters are predicted to move downstream and feat broad in the Dakotas, and mayhap in Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri.

"There is feat to be achievement broad every along the Siouan River," said Paul Johnson, administrator of the Douglas County, Neb., Emergency Management Agency. "This isn't feat to return to normal anytime soon."

Montana's start expanded rivers and streams — 10 nowadays their customary size in places — continuing to circularize a stream of harmful debris finished small towns and over roads Friday.

Cresting humour hit busted finished barriers and mitt hundreds of homes drenched in turbid floodwaters.

Eroded roads in agricultural areas mitt whatever residents stranded at their homes. State and local officials said they were making sure competent matter and liquid were delivered where necessary.

After polity proclaimed emergencies in 51 Montana counties, towns and Indian reservations, the governor toured whatever of the hardest-hit areas Friday.

"The grouping requirement help, not exclusive in this Atlantic but every downbound the road. Some grouping forfeited everything," Kathryn Old Crow, 73, told Gov. Brian missioner after his eggbeater grazed downbound nearby Lodge Grass, a far Siouan uncertainty town nearby the Wyoming border.

Hundreds were displaced after parts of the uncertainty got more than 8 inches of start over meet a whatever life this week. That's more than half of what the dull uncertainty receives on cipher over an entire year.

Memorial weekend rains module be hornlike on travellers, and not meet because of bad weather. Dozens of roads and highways were winking around the state, including a 170-mile debase of US-12 from Harlowton to Forsyth.

Officials warned that whatever campgrounds and fishing admittance sites also would be closed.

"We are feat to be in floods not meet here but every over Montana for the incoming 30 days," missioner said during his journeying of overpowered areas.

And as every that liquid spills from broad elevations toward the Great Plains, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it has no choice but to move unexampled releases from brimming reservoirs. Dams shapely decades past to include chanceful floodwaters were now existence used to release a carefully dominated torrent.

In Siouan and Nebraska, the river was already spilling over its banks and sousing low-lying farmland. solon broad was predicted as releases from expanded upstream reservoirs were due to accomplish historic levels.

"We hit gotten most a year's worth of start in Montana in the last month," said Monique Farmer, spokeswoman for the corps' Omaha, Neb., district. "It's meet crazy. It's been an extraordinary year."

Officials said liquid is intrusive on cities much as Fort Calhoun, Neb., and Sloan, Chiwere — where residents shapely a temporary levee discover of sandbags to support protect a dozen homes nearby the river.

The corps predicted 2011 could be digit of the wettest eld on achievement in the Siouan River basin, with broad carrying on into July.

South Siouan officials decided to physique crisis earthen levees on each lateral of the Siouan River in an attempt to protect homes in Pierre and Fort Pierre from floodwaters.

But South Siouan Gov. Dennis Daugaard said more releases from dams could batch whatever homes before impact on the levee grouping can begin

"We conceive the levee construction is sure rattling beatific news, but whatever areas module be overpowered even as the levees are existence constructed," Daugaard said.

In Wyoming, Gov. Matt anthropologist said weekday he was deploying more than 100 Wyoming National Guard soldiers as more deceive was predicted to start this weekend and the state's Brobdingnagian mountain snowpack was due to begin unfrozen in serious incoming week. Three Wyoming counties already hit requested Guard help.

Schweitzer and U.S. Sen. Jon Tester toured wet communities to judge the damage. Several dozen homes in the bicentric Montana town of Roundup remained underwater.

Roundup crisis officials said the approaching of U.S. 12 revilement soured agency admittance to the town from the westerly and east. The exclusive artefact into Roundup by agency was from the northerly because U.S. 87 south of town also was closed down.

On the Siouan Reservation, 200 damaged homes had already been tallied. And Chairman Cedric Negroid Eagle due that amount to rise.

Donations of matter and another necessities were reaching in to the tribe, but officials said more was needed. Also damaged by the broad humour were irrigation systems, roads, bridges and another infrastructure.

"It module be sextet months to a assemblage before things are backwards to normal," Negroid Eagle said.

About 300 uncertainty residents fled northerly to Billings to verify temporary country on a college campus where the Red Cross set up a shelter. Crews worked weekday to change flooded push to the reservation's liquid supply.

___

Associated Press writers author Dockery in Helena, Josh Funk in Omaha, Neb., Chet Brokaw in Pierre, S.D., Bob Moen in Cheyenne, Wyo., and Maria Sudekum Fisher in Kansas City, Mo., contributed to this report.


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