Outside Yellowstone, flooded towns struggle to recover
FROMBERG, Mont. (AP) – As officials scramble to reopen Yellowstone National Park to tourists this week after record floods pounded southern Montana, some of those hardest hit in the disaster live far from the famous park’s limelight and are leaning heavily on one another to pull their lives out of the mud.
In the farming town of Fromberg, the Clarks Fork River flooded almost 100 homes and badly damaged a major irrigation ditch that serves many of the farms.
The town’s mayor says about a third of the flooded homes can’t be repaired. Resident Lindi O’Brien says if the town is going to recover, its 400 people will have to do much of the work themselves.