Rain swamps Flathead

Daily Inter Lake staff

Deluge dumps water, hail across the valley, with at least one fire blamed on the storm

Northwest Montana was hammered by sudden heavy rain, hail and lightning Thursday, sending emergency services scrambling across the Flathead Valley.

The 3:30 p.m. deluge raised havoc, battering trees and houses, swamping low-lying areas and causing traffic jams across Kalispell.

Cars were stalled in 3 to 4 feet of water that rapidly collected at the base of Underpass Hill on Kalispell's east side and in Columbia Heights at the intersection of U.S. 2 and Montana 206.

A Kalispell police sport utility vehicle pushed cars out of the way as traffic backed up on both sides of the underpass on U.S. 2. Police issued an advisory recommending "necessary travel only" because of flooding at the underpass and malfunctioning traffic lights on U.S. 93 and U.S. 2.

As the rainstorm hit, 911 dispatch at the Sheriff's Office was flooded with calls.

From 3:30 to 4 p.m, the center handled 60 calls, according to an estimate by dispatcher Tracy Finn.

Among them was a report of boat or windsurfer capsized on Whitefish Lake, a house fire on Yodelin Ridge Road and a garage that collapsed on Airport Road.

Boaters on the lake turned out to be safe. The house fire, possibly caused by a lightning strike, was extinguished by Smith Valley, Evergreen, South Kalispell, and West Valley fire departments. The garage collapse also was blamed on the weather; no one was hurt.

The storm took a momentary toll on the dispatch center's ability to page fire departments. The communications equipment was reset quickly, with 911 coordinator Lisa Durand and dispatchers Finn, Craig Montgomery and Sherry Reid handling a multitude of duties with grace.

There were reports of trees fallen over power lines, fire and burglar alarms activated by the storm, trees and rock slides littering the highway near West Glacier, and sparking power lines down to Lower Valley.

Stephanie Wallace, community affairs manager for Flathead Electric Cooperative, said there were widespread outages, mostly in the rural areas west of Kalispell.

"We've got everything from lines down to trees on lines," she said late Thursday afternoon. "West of Kalispell right now is the biggest area that we're trying to get back on."

Employees at a flat-roofed furniture store were frantically brooming water of the roof, apparently because it was leaking into the store.

Although the storm challenged the seals on roofs, it also drew people to their windows to watch the drama of the darkened sky and its violent release of moisture.

Outside the courthouse, workers balled up handfuls of hail and threw them like snowballs in July.

The storm moved in from the west, first peppering Libby and surrounding areas of Lincoln County with heavy rain and hail.

"It was basically a line of thunderstorms that formed in front of a weak cold front," said Andrew Church, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Missoula. "It did cover just about the entire north-to-south span of the state."

A dispatcher with the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office said there were several reports of lightning fire starts in forested areas, and reports of trees on power lines, but no significant flooding reports.

A full 1.37 inches of rain officially was recorded about 32 miles southeast of Libby. The storm gradually weakened as it moved east. In downtown Kalispell, .44 inches of rain dropped between 4 and 5 p.m., and .49 inches was recorded at Glacier Park International Airport during the same period.

Other than some thunder and lightning along with a bit of wind and rain, Columbia Falls escaped any violence from the storm.

Columbia Falls fire Chief Robert Webber said he was in his Fire Department vehicle shortly before 4:30 p.m. when a page went out to local police that people floating the river had gotten caught in the storm. Apparently, Webber said, they were on inner tubes headed for Kokanee Bend. Everyone made his or her way safely to shore.

The cherry crop on Flathead Lake appeared to be unscathed.

Dale Nelson, president of the Flathead Lake Cherry Growers, said he got a little bit of rain but the storm didn't do much. His orchard is just south of Yellow Bay. Bowman Orchard reported very little damage.

Laila Proffitt said Thursday's storm was mostly rain and thunder, but a more-destructive storm Wednesday blew down a few limbs at the Woods Bay orchard.

Wednesday's storm, at about 7 p.m., also took a toll on a barge at Deep Bay in Flathead Lake. The vessel, which has sunk previously in the lake, was partially submerged after the storm blew up large waves in the lake.

The barge reportedly released little if any petroleum products into the lake this time.