The River Is Still Rising: Newport Watches the Pend Oreille
At 16.6 feet above low water, the Pend Oreille has not yet crested. Calispel flats are flooded, dikes are holding, and boatmen are waiting for the water to turn.
The gauge at the docks of the Pend Oreille River Navigation Co. showed a water stage of 16.6 feet above low water mark at 3:30 p.m. today. The river raised three-tenths of a foot in the twenty-four hours previous, the smallest raise in any twenty-four hour period of the past two weeks. On June 11 the mark was 16.9; last year the river reached the crest, 21.7, on June 16, which it held for four days and then began to fall. On this date last year the mark was 17.4.
The latest report from the Northern Pacific received by Chief Engineer Smith, of the I.W.N., is to the effect that the outlook is now more favorable. Clark's Fork fell nine inches at Paradise, Mont., yesterday and Pend Oreille Lake rose only three inches. Weather at the head waters is clear, and with no further rain for a few days the danger is probably over for this year.
A large part of the Calispel flats back of Usk and Cusick is under water. At Locke the new dike erected by Messrs. Metcalf and others is still holding out and able to stand a slight raise.
The management of the Ruth is planning to extend the run of that boat to Metaline just as soon as the water falls sufficiently to make the passage of Box Canyon safely. The boat was built to make the run, and it would have been done before now had business conditions in the Metaline country warranted it. With the new life being injected into the down-river country by the coming of the railroad, there is business in sight and the Ruth is going after it.
“A large part of the Calispel flats back of Usk and Cusick is under water.”
Flood watches on the Pend Oreille are still a spring ritual in Newport, and the language of gauges, crests, and dikes has not changed much. What has changed is the stakes: lowland homes, roads, and rail lines sit behind the same levees. The 1909 story is a reminder that river towns live with predictions and sandbags, not certainty.
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