1964 Flood sign installed at Teakettle FAS

One way to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1964 Flood is to put up a sign showing the public just how high the water got.

That’s exactly what the National Weather Service in Missoula and the U.S. Geological Survey office in Kalispell did recently.

With cooperation from the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the Flathead Conservation District, a new high-water mark sign was installed last week at the Teakettle Fishing Access Site in Columbia Falls.

On June 9, 1964, the Flathead River reached 25.58 feet above flood stage at the U.S. 2 bridge. Streamflow volume reached 176,000 cubic feet per second, according to a USGS river gage that has operated about one mile downstream from the bridge for the past 90 years.

Mayor Don Barnhart was on hand June 5 with other federal, state and local officials for a ceremony recognizing the new sign. He recalled seeing the Silver Bridge that preceded the current highway bridge buffeted by high waters and floating debris.

“I could see the bridge shake and hear the logs pounding as they hit the bridge,” he said. “But the much older Red Bridge just downstream survived the flood OK.”

According to NWS service hydrologist Ray Nickless, the 1964 Flood was the result of a perfect storm — moist warm air traveling north from the Gulf of Mexico getting trapped in a counter-clockwise swirl by a low pressure zone in Wyoming and then encountering a cold front descending from Canada.

The result was a lot of rain — about 10 to 14 inches fell in the mountains east of the Flathead Valley over a day and a half. The rain came after several months of new spring snow, but mountain snowpack was only about 120 percent of average, Nickless said, so it was the rain that made the difference.

“In Missoula, we only get about 14 inches of precipitation — rain and snow — in a whole year,” he said.