Down To The Waterline As River Rises Again, Cataldo Residents Build Their Own Dike

Residents of this tiny community still are calculating damage from the Feb. 9 flood, still drying out their homes.

They also still are worrying that the Coeur d’Alene River might flood again. So, after decades of trying to get government help, they’re doing some free-lance dikebuilding.

“After so many years, after so much effort, you just say, ‘All right, guys, enough of that - we’re going to fix it,”’ said Verne Blalack.

A rainy weekend and water backing up from Lake Coeur d’Alene are making people nervous.

“It came up 4 feet last night,” retiree Blalack said Monday. “That’s why I ordered these.”

He nodded toward concrete blocks being unloaded with a crane below the Interstate 90 overpass in eastern Kootenai County.

There were fresh piles of rock and dirt nearby. According to Blalack, a state highway official said the volunteers could proceed with the project.

Blalack paid for the blocks. If there’s another flood, they’ll be moved into position across LaTour Creek road, which goes through a gap in the dike.

The rock for the dike came from a pit on Don Huber’s property.

Huber, who lives just up the road, was operating a backhoe Monday. He was among the locals who had labored up to the last minute during the flood, building a 5-foot-high wall of sandbags and cement highway barriers. “I was at it for 32 hours,” he said.

But the floodwaters shoved aside the barriers and gouged a hole under one of the pillars holding up the highway. What’s left of the sandbags fits in one small, soggy pile.

Blalack moved here in 1975, a year after the last big flood. He and other townsfolk have lobbied county, state and federal officials, hoping for help in fending off floods.

Residents did get some floodgates. Under normal conditions, those keep water from backing up under I-90 into their town from the north. That water actually has flowed past the town once. When the river rises, it seeps into a slough that overflows.

In Cataldo’s war on water, the second front is on the west. It’s defended by a dike that was built by the Army Corps of Engineers to protect I-90.

The dike leaks. And in the recent flood, the water came within a foot of its top, Blalack said. He’d like to see the dike raised.

Kootenai and Shoshone counties have agreed to reinforce part of the dike with spray-on concrete this summer, said Bill Schwartz, Kootenai County disaster services coordinator. That $32,000 project is aimed at stopping leaks.

“The corps won’t repair a dike until it fails,” said Schwartz.

Schwartz lives up LaTour Creek Road. Like others here, he hopes the recent federal disaster declaration will shake loose some flood-prevention money.

In some places, Blalack said, people probably should just move out of the flood plain. But in the case of Cataldo, he said, dikes are needed to protect the highway. So why not take care of the town, too?

On Feb. 9 the brown water lapped at I-90.

Blalack isn’t optimistic about getting federal help. Other towns were hard-hit by the floods, too, he said.

“There’s only so much money to go around.”

But he doesn’t want a repeat of what happened on the afternoon of Feb. 9, when water was about to top the wall of sandbags. National Guardsmen had abandoned the sandbagging six hours earlier because it got too dangerous. Muddy volunteers kept at it, finally turning to Blalack about 3 p.m. Was it time to quit?

“Everybody looked at me and I said, ‘Yeah, I guess,”’ Blalack said. “I knew the houses would be flooded.”

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