Rapidly Rising River Causes Flood Scare Rain, Warm Weather Swells North Fork At An Inch An Hour Wednesday

Residents along the North Fork of Coeur d’Alene River were treated to a flood scare Wednesday - but it was a false alarm.

“It was real strange. The river came up really, really fast. It caught a lot of people off guard,” said Joe Peak, who owns the Enaville Resort. Peak blames the speed of the event on Wednesday’s hard rain in combination with the warm winds on Tuesday.

Shoshone County Deputy Mike Gunderson, who patrolled the river Wednesday night, said some people chose to spend the night with friends.

Near midnight, Peak helped a neighbor, Van Scott, move a freezer and other furniture into a U-Haul truck, just in case.

Scott lives on the Old River Road north of Kingston. He parked the U-Haul beside his house and kept the freezer - full of meat - running with an extension cord.

“It could flood yet. We’ll wait a few days, see what happens, then unload,” said a friend who stayed at Scott’s house through the crisis.

Water has pooled on both sides of the CCC Road that runs in front of Madsen’s house, but as the night wore on, it never crossed the road.

Shoshone County Disaster Services Director Chuck Herrod said the sheriff’s office warned him of rising water around 7 p.m. Herrod monitored water levels at an electronic monitor near Enaville all night. The monitor relays water levels by phone.

“When I first started calling, the monitor indicated the river was rising at about an inch per hour. Since the weather people said it could rain through the night, I thought we might have a serious problem,” Herrod said.

But rain turned to snow around 9 p.m., and even the snow stopped falling as the night wore on. By midnight, the level of the river was falling, he said.

“The river has dropped tremendously over the last 24 hours,” Gunderson said. “It’s still high and swift, but for the moment, flood danger seems to be past.”