Fort Peck 2011

*This is another post I found in my draft folder from May 2011 that did not publish*

This winter and spring have been crazy with moisture.  We had record snowfall, and there was snow on the ground for 9 straight months!! And now this spring it's raining.  And raining.  Between the record snowfall and amazing amount of rain we are experiencing a quite a bit of flooding on the Missouri River.

A good portion of our farm ground is on the river bottom.  A good portion of that is flooded, totally underwater.  A neighbor pivot is close to falling into the river.  The river is cutting new channels through our fields.  The Big Missouri has no friends right now.  

Alone the Missouri would have been out of its banks this spring.  That we could have handled.  But we live down stream from Fort Peck Dam.  And they have the spillway opened wide letting water out of the dam to keep from flooding there. It's kind of a bad situation.  

One day last week we took a little road trip to check out the river and see for ourselves how crazy Fort Peck Dam was.  

On our way to Fort Peck, we had to stop and take a picture at the Flowing Wells sign.  This is where my dad grew up.

A view of the water coming out of the gates.

Looking down onto the gates.  The noise was incredible!

The water hitting the Missouri River.  You could just feel the force

Grandma and Daddy with the girls checking out the water. 

Looking straight down to the gates.

Water coming out of the gates and into the channel.