When the River Jumped Its Banks

In the summer of 1993, the small farming community of Hardin, Montana, watched the Bighorn River swell past its banks after weeks of relentless rain. Water that had always flowed in a single channel — predictable, contained, controlled — suddenly spread across the entire valley floor. It seeped into irrigation ditches that hadn't carried water in years. It filled stock ponds on ranches too far from the river to ever benefit from it.…