Dealing with disasters, both large and small, have been at the core of our businesses since the beginnings of the cleaning, restoration, and remediation industry. While many of us have had to face catastrophic events like hurricanes and other large storm events, we in Montana don’t think we need to worry much about such devastation. Sure, a few wildfires during the summer can be termed “catastrophic” and massive hail storms can keep thousands of local and out of state roofers busy, but normally, we feel pretty secure that a “national news” scale of emergency is unlikely.
Not anymore. Mother Nature created a perfect storm situation in the northwest Rocky Mountain region. As winter departed this spring, she gave the mountains of southern Montana and northern Wyoming a final blanket of snow dozens of feet deep in some places and as much as 200% of our normal amount. Warmer weather had begun to melt the snow, then it rained. That was all the headwaters to the Missouri River needed to swell river banks to overflowing taking out everything in its path.