Flooding Takes Many By Surprise

Homer Hoffman either saw two of them or the same one twice.

Mechanic David Hunter saw only one, but he got a good look.

It was a “real nice-looking green with a little half-moon on it,” Hunter said.

It (or they) was an outhouse - not an uncommon sight along campground-riddled Highway 50. But this outhouse spent Monday floating down the runoff-muddied St. Joe River.

“It was lying on its side,” Hunter said. “If it had been floating upright, that’d have been something.”

While Silver Valley homeowners spent Sunday and Monday sandbagging to hold back the rising Coeur d’Alene River, most residents along the St. Joe looked to the natural display of force for entertainment.

Some, like Hunter, watched from home as water rose nearly 8 feet in 24 hours, peaking at 33.5 feet in St. Joe City at 8 a.m. Monday.

“It came up far more rapidly than I’ve seen in my 18 years here,” Hunter said.

Well-perched above marshy Whitetail Flats, he saw the river bury roads and rise to meet the floorboards of recreational vehicles up on blocks.

“They belong to summer residents,” he said. “Every year we try to tell them, but they don’t listen.”

St. Maries resident Rose Duke and dozens of others crowded the highway carrying cameras and camcorders. The usually quiet road was crammed with curiosity-seekers.

“Look at the mist,” she said, still gazing through her viewfinder. “It’s beautiful.”

She crammed footage of a gazebo buried to the roof in muddy water onto a tape of a family barbecue and Christmas celebrations.

But rancher Jack Farrell, for one, wasn’t impressed at all.

“Hell, this ain’t nothing,” Farrell said from his seat at the Calder General Store.

In 1933, he said, the river flooded 12 feet over the banks, high enough for him to row a boat to the same general store, “right up to the eaves.”

Retired logger Bob Patterson spent Monday much as he had spent time during that historic flood.

Monday, the 86-year-old chased a tattered floating boat nearly a mile in his rowboat, only to give up and paddle back upstream. He had wanted the scrap wood.

“Back in 1933, I rowed right down the middle of the highway” trying to save his neighbors’ cattle. “I’m still a lot stronger than most my age.”

Of course, not all residents enjoyed the excitement.

Hoffman, a Shoshone County sheriff’s deputy, worked until 3 a.m., then stayed awake listening to the gunshot sound of loosening ice floes.

The river rose enough to send 6 inches of water into the basement of the Big Eddy Resort. Owner Gary Przybilski was scared - but then, he’s new to the area.

“The gods sounded really unhappy,” he said. “And I didn’t do anything to upset them.”