GREAT FALLS — Flooding may not have seemed like much of a concern on Friday, April 28 but that doesn't mean it can't happen.
We've seen flooding happen recently up in the Hi-line.
One of the many resources Great Falls Fire Rescue has to respond to flooding is a boat at fire station one.
"We have suits, we have the boat, throw ropes, different ways of dealing with victims," Great Falls Fire Rescue Deputy Chief of Training Nolan Eggen said.
He said water training happens at least monthly.
"Any type of low frequency high risk type of event is something that we want to train for more more often than anything else," Eggen explained.
The last time the city experienced flooding was in 2018.
"Flooding in 2018 included the Sun River. There was also the Missouri River that was impacted from the Deerborn River being higher than it had before," Great Falls Emergency manager Katie Brewer said.
Brewer explained sandbags were made available for residents and a boat ramp was closed temporarily.
"We're always planning for different hazards in our community. One of the ways that we do is we have our local emergency planning committee that involves city agencies and county agencies that meet on a monthly basis. We go over hazards that we may face, we update our plans, we do tabletop exercises," Brewer said.
Ashley Jaeger remembers the flooding of 2018 well.
"The one in '18 was our very first call-out ever," said Jaeger.
She is the interim president of a group called the Community Emergency Response Team in Cascade County. In 2018, she and members of the group responded to Vaughn to help with flooding from the Sun River.
"Right now, we're just putting together a team that can be available that can be called out to this possible flooding," said Jaeger.
As of Friday, Cascade County Emergency Manager Brad Call had been watching area river and reservoir levels closely recently.
"One of the most important things you need to watch for is the trend line and how things are trending and what it looks like upstream. You never want to take a picture of what a stream is doing at (a given) spot. You have to take the whole thing into account," said Call.
Like CERT and the city of Great Falls, the county has a team ready to respond if flooding occurs.
"We never sit back and just watch. We always want to make sure we're prepared and we're doing everything we can for the citizens of Cascade County and for the region," Call emphasized.
TRENDING
- Who's performing at the Montana State Fair?
- Autopsy: cause of death of Great Falls baby
- MT House bars transgender Representative
- Merchant: election info for Cascade County
- Recent Obituaries
FOLLOW KRTV: Instagram | TikTok | Twitter
