MISSOULA – The ongoing flooding in Missoula County has left homeowners in the flood area waiting to find out exactly how badly their property may be damaged.
Modified evacuations orders are still in place in the Orchard Homes area where flood waters have gone down.
“With the river levels being lower, it afforded people some opportunity to get in and start assessing what had happened on their property and to collect any items that they might not have collected before they left,” said Missoula County Emergency Management director. Adriane Beck.
Beck says as water levels are expected to rise and remain high over the next several days, the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office may reconsider the modification and begin to enforce a stricter evacuation order again.
Property damage has been exposed as flood waters have receded in Missoula. But emergency management officials are saying that they plan to wait until the waters have gone down and stayed down before they are going to apply a mechanism for people to actually report these property damages.
“When we get to a place where we feel like the river is going to go down and stay down, we’ll be providing information to homeowners as to how to complete those damage assessments, but certainly the first place they should be talking to is their insurance policies,” Beck said.
With flood levels still in flux, residents in these flooded areas aren’t going to be back to business as usual for a while, but plans for recovery are beginning to take shape.
Beck said police are patrolling areas where people are evacuated to protect unoccupied properties.
