While the Mouse River remains iced-over right now, one of its tributaries is running out of its banks today.

Willow Creek - which drains the Turtle Mountains and snakes through southwestern Bottineau and northeastern McHenry Counties - is spilling onto farm and pastureland.

The flooding began suddenly on Sunday - and the creek continued its rise through the day today.

Water is running over rural roads west of Willow City - in a place where, just 24 hours earlier - the Willow Creek was frozen in its banks. The sudden rise in the creek began Sunday afternoon.

(Brad Klebe, Rancher) "From 1:00 to 4:30 it completely changed."


Brad Klebe lives alongside Willow Creek, about seven miles west of Willow City. He watched as his farm yard was inundated - a flood that spooked his horses that were cornered just outside the water.

(Brad Klebe, Rancher) "They're having a tough day, they didn't sleep much last night for worry."


The high water gave the farm's cats some new places to play - and stranded a field mouse on ice chunks floating down the creek. It also caused a few ranchers to have to move their herds away from the low teritorry. About ten miles west of Willow City, Brad Fecho moved his 260-plus cattle from pastures along the creek to higher ground.

(Brad Fecho, Rancher) "Yesterday we dozed all the snow out of here so we could move our cattle up from the feedlot down there where it's going to flood probably tonight or tomorrow."


The ranchers guess they're seeing runoff from heavy rains that hit the region more than a week ago - water that is coming from the Turtle Mountains - overwhelming the creek channel and quickly melting the snow that had filled it up over the long winter.

(Jim Olson, KX News) "Folks who live around here are used to seeing the Willow Creek rise quickly in the spring but what worries them this year is all of this snow that needs to be melted and joined up with the creek. Plus the creek drains the Turtle Mountain region to the north and there's still plenty of snow and water to come from there as well." (Brad Klebe, Rancher) "What could get us into trouble is if this flood doesn't start to go down or get a majority of it out of here before the snow starts melting, we have quite a snowpack to melt off. That could cause us problems if we jump from 30 degrees to 50 degrees in a short period of time."


If that happens, Klebe worries that Willow Creek could reach 1969-type record levels and cause a lot more problems. Near Willow City, Jim Olson, KX News.

The level of Willow Creek is measured very close to the spot we just showed you.

It's current reading is at 14.51 - up from 7.45 at seven last night.

Willow Creek empties into the Mouse River near Upham - as the Mouse makes its trip north back into Canada. watch the video | save this article / add to your favorites list