The Yellowstone River was flowing at a historically high level of 16 feet (4.9 meters) as it raced past Billings due to heavy weekend rains and melting mountain snow. The city gets its water from the river and had to shut down its treatment plant around 9:30 a.m. because it couldn't operate effectively with such high water levels.
"When we designed these facilities, none of us anticipated a 500-year flood event on the Yellowstone," said Debi Meling, the city's public works director.
Billings had only a 24- to 36-hour supply of water, and officials urged its 110,000 residents to conserve while expressing hope that the river would drop quickly enough for the plant to reopen before the supply ran out. The city also stopped watering parks and boulevards, and the fire department was filling trucks with Yellowstone River water.
The river was expected to crest Wednesday evening and drop below minor flood stage, 13.5 feet (4.1 meters), by mid to late Thursday, according to Cory Mottice of the National Weather Service in Billings.
The unprecedented and sudden flooding that raged through Yellowstone earlier this week forced all of the park's more than 10,000 visitors to flee, and the park remains closed. It damaged hundreds of homes in nearby communities, but no one was injured or killed.
It also pushed a popular fishing river off course — possibly permanently — and may force roadways destroyed by floods to be rebuilt a safer distance away.
Residents in Red Lodge, Montana, a gateway town to the park's northern end, used shovels, wheelbarrows, and a pump on Wednesday to clear thick mud and debris from a flooded home along Rock Creek's banks.
"We thought we had it, but then a bridge collapsed." "And it diverted the creek, and the water began rolling in the back, breaking out a basement window, and filling up my basement," Pat Ruzich explained. "And then I gave up." It was as if the water had won."