The Missoula County Department of Emergency Services, a division of the Office of Emergency Management, has been in communication with the National Weather Service regarding the spring valley rain and mountain snow headed this way.

Deputy DES Director Nick Holloway said his department has one eye on the weather and another on the river levels in Missoula.

“We got a call from the weather service late last week saying that we had a rain event coming our way and we've been watching the weather closely,” said Holloway. “It's going to be cooler and which is a good thing and a little bit rainy, but we've also been watching the river forecast pretty closely and it's gone up and down a little bit. So we're just watching real closely and making sure that we're prepared if it does go up above that flood stage.”

Holloway said those living in areas where rivers have historically risen past their banks are already know where to find information to keep their homes safe.

“First off, they can look and monitor the river situation itself,” he said. “Most of them are familiar with where to find that information, but for those who aren't, we have a flood information web page on our website, and that's the Missoula County Office of Emergency Management. On that page, it shows all the local river levels and the forecast for those rivers. So it shows how high the levels could potentially get.”

Regardless of what happens this week, Holloway said all Missoula County residents should sign up for Smart 9-1-1.

“The second thing folks can do is sign up for Smart 9-1-1,” he said. “That's our emergency alerting service, and in the event that we would have to do an evacuation, that’s the first and best way to find out early that of an evacuation is going to occur. That's pretty unlikely right now, but we're not ruling it out completely at all.”

Get details about the Department of Emergency Services here, and Smart 9-1-1 here.

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