Historic Absarokee homestead flooded, evacuated as river levels hit 11 feet

STILLWATER COUNTY — Residents are contacting it a 100-yr flood as the Stillwater River achieved 11 feet Monday, flooding properties and forcing the evacuation of citizens.

The Wilcox spouse and children has been ranching at their homestead in close proximity to the confluence of the Rosebud and Stillwater rivers, north of Absarokee, due to the fact the 1860s.

Wanda Wilcox only remembers a person flood feeling as considerable as the a single witnessed Monday.

“I believe it was 1963,” Wilcox reported. “Our father stated ‘come hell or superior h2o, we have to get off this farm’ and it was flooding, but not this negative.”

Monday early morning, Wanda and her prolonged family members who simply call the homestead dwelling have been forced to evacuate as the rivers rose and flooded their properties.

“I was up at quarter to five. Something informed me, I heard a roar and so I ran outdoors in my nightgown and informed my partner, we’ve acquired to get going,” she explained.

The spouse and children evacuated to larger land on their residence the place so significantly they really feel risk-free. They also evacuated their horses who were being belly deep in h2o, reported 11-year-old Teigan Wilcox, Wanda’s grandson.

“This morning when we all woke up, we just recognized that the rivers ended up genuinely large and then we evacuated and we went up to in which the river was not in our property and just a minimal little bit back the river started out to flood,” Teigan claimed.

The Stillwater County Sheriff’s Office has issued a boil detect for persons in flood impacted parts. Eleven streets and bridges have been shut because of to flooding at the time of this publication.

On the Wilcox homestead, residences, corrals and other properties have been broken by flood waters. Wilcox and other citizens in the spot have heard studies of homes and cabins washing away down the river.

Standing with Teigan and his father, Ty Wilcox, on the new North Stillwater Highway bridge, barrels, boards, and a deck washed down the river.

“It’s a terrible feeling to drop everything,” Wanda Wilcox mentioned. “But we are ok. Life are irreplaceable. Photos, clothing, it won’t subject. It is really life that matter.”