Roundup Montana

High winds driven by a fast-moving line of thunderstorms downed trees and knocked out electricity to about 500 homes and businesses. National Weather Service meteorologist Matt Solum says that the storm moved through at about 6 p.m. Sunday with wind between 60 and 70 mph.

More than 300 people now have a way out of a central Montana neighborhood cut off since last week after floodwaters washed out several roads in rural Musselshell County.

Muddy conditions are frustrating attempts to complete road repairs in central Montana that would give about 300 stranded residents a way out of their rural neighborhood.

Work crews in central Montana on Sunday began repairing two washouts of a backcountry road as part of a plan to get to another washout on a larger road that has for a week cut off more than 300 people in a rural area near the town of Roundup.

Authorities say 300 Roundup residents are cut off after record level flooding washed out part of a road. Roundup Emergency Official Jeff Gates said Thursday the families cut off are being supplied by boat until the road can be repaired.

The National Weather Service says Montana's swollen rivers could begin hitting flood stage Wednesday, one day after severe storms hit the state. The storms dumped up to 4 inches of rain in some areas and golf ball-sized hailstones on Tuesday.

Federal emergency officials have started arriving in Montana to gauge the damage from flooding that is expected to continue for possibly several more weeks. Rain that plastered the state for more than a week finally eased Tuesday, allowing authorities in the swamped town of Roundup to start pumping water from some areas.

As flooding washes out roads and swamps more homes in Montana, regional rains are forcing releases from dams that promise to swell the Missouri River past its banks downstream in Iowa and the Dakotas.