From the Monday, May 19, 2008 online edition of the Daily Inter Lake . . .

Area rivers topped flood stage on Monday, sending water into low-lying areas of West Glacier and Polebridge.

[…]

In Polebridge, the North Fork of the Flathead River rose gradually over the last few days, finally swamping the lawn at the North Fork Hostel on Sunday night.

“I have some water in my yard as of this morning,” said hostel owner Oliver Meister, who has been watching the National Weather Service online river forecasting closely. “Believe me, I’ve been looking at that for the last five days.”

The river gauge at Polebridge showed flows reaching 11.25 feet Monday, just below the river’s 12-foot flood stage. But the North Fork was forecasted to crest just above flood stage by this morning.

Meister said he was prepared to sandbag his house to keep water out of his kitchen.

The hostel has the lowest-lying structures in the Polebridge area, and Meister speculated that the river would have to exceed its forecasted peak by quite a bit to cause problems for neighboring homes.

Read the entire article . . .