Libby family struggles to resume everyday life following flood

The conversation stopped as soon as the car came to a halt.  

"Come on, come on,” Nathan Cernick muttered under his breath as he pressed on the gas. 

The 2001 Outback Subaru revved as its oversized tires slipped on the mud, slick from rain and melted snow. The ruts under the car were a foot deep. Wheels spun in the water. 

Cernick tried to gain momentum by putting the car in reverse and jamming it into drive. The wheels lost traction every time. Eventually, everyone clambered out, careful not to sink into the thick sludge.  

With less weight in the vehicle, the car slipped out of the pit with ease. 

“It’s not a nice road,” Nathan remarked, echoing a months’ old inside joke with his family. 

The muddy 4x4 trail behind the Cernicks’ home outside Libby is the only way the family can leave their property. December’s flooding wiped out a chunk of a private haul road, leaving a gap about the size of a football field. It was their sole connection to Swede Mountain Road, a main artery in a rural neighborhood outside of town. 

The atmospheric river that swept through the Pacific Northwest in December brought catastrophic floods through Lincoln and Sanders counties. Life for hundreds of Lincoln County residents was disrupted after bridges and roads were swept away, and the water supply was contaminated for several weeks. Major windstorms hit less than a week after the floods, knocking out power for thousands of homes in western Montana. 

Emergency requests have flooded the Lincoln Conservation District from residents, said District Administrator Rhonda Rockwell. Property owners filed for permits to repair flood- or wind-damaged infrastructure. Some requests asked forgiveness for work already done on their property.  

For Nathan, repairing the damaged road is entirely up to him. And it’ll cost between $70,000 and $80,000, he said. 

“I knew it would be expensive, but I didn’t think it would be $70-80,000,” he said. “I was shocked.” 

Mud from a rainy winter season has turned the small 4x4 trail into a dangerous slip-n-slide. Nathan once had to rescue his wife Shaina with his truck after the car hit a bump and slipped into a ditch.  

Given the arduousness of the trek, the Cernicks pulled their kids out of school after Christmas break, despite it being their first year enrolled in the public school district. Nathaniel, 13, and Elaina, 11, expressed disappointment not being able to see their friends every day. 

“I’m kind of sad,” Nathaniel said. “Because we haven’t been going to school, missing our friends and stuff.” 

He still makes it to weekly baseball practice, though, and he’s looking forward to playing in baseball tournaments in April.  

THE HOME was constructed in 2017 by Nathan and his brother, not far from the house they lived in with their dad as teenagers. Built on a raised bluff 4 miles outside of Libby, north of Swede Gulch, the open space is perfect for raising German Shepherds, steers, pigs, horses and several cats. All three Cernick children are involved in 4-H.  

Corisa Cernick, 14, has raised market pigs for years, and just started raising a steer this year. But she had to miss the last weigh-in for her steer because the trail was too muddy to pull the trailer.  

“I don’t wanna miss so many of these weigh-ins,” she said. “I don’t know if [his weight’s] on track.” 

Corisa also wonders what the chances are of getting to a veterinarian if one of her animals has an emergency. One of her pigs recently got sick, she said, and the vet prescribed antibiotics over the phone. That was a lucky situation, she noted, since most vets won’t prescribe medicine without examining the animal first.  

“It’s kind of stressful, like, always in the back of your mind,” Corisa said. “It’s gonna be so much harder to just make a run to town, especially if I have an emergency with my horse or my cow.” 

Driving on the muddy trail with heavy bags of grain and bales of hay in the car is also something they’re careful about, Shaina said. 

“We go to the feed store ... and get the 80-pound bags. It’s like, how much can we get away with?” she said.  

The last thing they want is to get stuck in the mud with hundreds of pounds of animal food in the car. And more precipitation is predicted in the area through Wednesday night, according to the National Weather Service. 

THE FAMILY still maintains an optimistic outlook, appreciative of the fact that they at least have an alternative path to town that doesn’t leave them totally stranded. But for Nathan, it’s hard to see the glass half full some days.  

“I was actually kind of pretty depressed about it,” he said. “I was feeling pretty down, and the winters already bum me out.” 

He started a GoFundMe to raise money to repair the road, a project he plans to execute himself, given his background in residential construction. He calculated he’ll need 1,800 cubic yards of material to fill the road, and an additional 600 yards of 18-inch rock to rebuild the washed-out riprap.   

Nathan said he is almost done with the permit application process to begin reconstruction.  

A 10-page form was sent to a dozen different agencies, including the state Department of Environmental Quality, Lincoln County Planning Department, Lincoln Conservation District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. He told the Inter Lake he has two of the three required permits to start the project. 

“I mean, eventually it’ll be resolved, you know, one way or another,” Nathan said. “It’s just hard to have the patience to keep grinding at it.” 

Report for America Reporter Hannah Shields can be reached at 406-758-4439 or [email protected]. If you value local journalism, pledge your support at dailyinterlake.com/support. 

    Nathan Cernick opens the car door of his Subaru after it gets stuck on a muddy 4x4 trail behind his house in Libby. (Hannah Shields/Daily Inter Lake)