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Gallatin County was luckier than some of its neighbors in terms of impacts from this week’s flooding, but it didn’t escape unscathed.

Austin McDowell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Great Falls, said the Gallatin River at Gallatin Gateway peaked on Monday night, and that water levels continued to fall Tuesday.

The Gallatin River at Logan was expected to peak Tuesday evening, McDowell added, and the surrounding area will be in a minor flood stage until around Wednesday at noon.

The county had closed a handful of bridges and roads because of the flooding.

The Road and Bridge Department closed the Williams Bridge around noon on Monday.

On Tuesday, Kevin Larsen, the operations and training manager for Gallatin County emergency management, said the bridge was now deemed “unusable,” and will have to be replaced once flooding recedes.

The county also closed a stretch of Axtell Gateway Road between Axtell Anceny Road and Gateway South Road around 7 a.m. Tuesday.

“We got pretty darn lucky compared to our neighbors in the east,” Larsen said.

Larsen stressed that water on roadways and closures are “dynamic and quickly changing.”

“People should expect to run into a road closure [near Gallatin Gateway] and if not, be pleasantly surprised,” he said.

People have banded together to help prevent further flooding and start to repair damage caused by the excess water.

Around 40 people gathered at the Forest Mobile Home Park in Four Corners on Tuesday to help fortify the low-lying community on the east bank of the Gallatin River.

Residents and volunteers from church groups from as far as Missouri filled sand bags and stacked them on the shore, undercut in many places by the river. At least one home had muddy water running beneath exposed corners.

JoAnn Frizzell, a resident of the park for 23 years, pointed to a pile of wet dirt and sandbags holding back the river. Frizzell said water began seeping through the berm on Monday night, but was stopped. “If this berm breaks, the whole park will flood,” she said,

“I’m kind of in the safer part of the park,” Frizzell said.

“But I’m nervous for my neighbors. She says one of her neighbors lost 10 feet of their yard. “We watched a lot of his stuff literally float down the river.”

Frizzell said the effort to protect the park began around 5 p.m. on Monday as water began accumulating around homes. Between Monday and Tuesday, they used 60 tons of sand.

“We’ve had to do this before a couple times,” Frizzell said, “but this is the scariest one.”

Walter Baugher, manager of Forest Mobile Home Park, was grateful for the support the park received.

“Everybody coming together is very heartwarming,” Baugher said. “There’s people here I’ve never met before.”

People can monitor the Gallatin County Government and Gallatin County Emergency Management Facebook pages for updates about impacts from flooding.

Isabel Hicks can be reached at 406-582-2651 or at ihicks@dailychronicle.com.

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