Rain, floods hit Plains and Rockies

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) - Relief teams reached an isolated town on Montana's flooded Crow Indian reservation on Tuesday, as authorities elsewhere in the state recovered the body of a second victim of floodwaters expected to surge even higher in coming days.

Yellowstone County Sheriff Mike Linder said a man's body was found downstream of where 47-year-old Clint Stovall disappeared Sunday while moving equipment near Pryor Creek. The sheriff said a positive identification was expected Wednesday, but authorities are presuming it is Stovall's body because he is the only one missing in the area.

The recovery came as heavy rain falling on saturated ground swelled rivers and streams over their banks across large swaths of the Northern Plains and Rockies.

Forecasters warned that rain at higher elevations could accelerate the melting of mountain snowpacks and exacerbate low-land flooding.

Montana is at the soggy center of the weather pattern. Flood warnings already have been issued for 35 counties, and National Weather Service meteorologist Keith Meier says a series of storms is expected to further soak the state through the next week. Colorado and Wyoming also could get hit.

"We have another one of these systems coming in from the Pacific, and it looks like it essentially wants to come here to die," Meier said. "It's hard to discern who's got the worst situation. Everybody's got issues."

Limited evacuations were ordered along central Montana's Musselshell River on Tuesday, and officials in Ryegate were scrambling to reinforce a dike that shields the low-lying town of 300 people from the river.

To the south, residents along the Tongue River Valley bordering the Northern Cheyenne Reservation were told to be ready to flee if water overtops an upstream reservoir, Meier said. Communities along central Montana's Shields River could be next in line for flooding, overnight Tuesday.