ROCKY BOY’S RESERVATION, Montana - A half-year ago, much of the Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation in north central Montana was under water.

Still in recovery mode, the Chippewa Cree tribe is facing years of work just to get back to where they were before the unprecedented flood hit this small reservation in mid-June last year.

Ted Whitford, a Rocky Boy tribal councilman, estimated that the reservation sustained more than $31 million in flood damages.

The flood washed out roads and destroyed plumbing lines leaving hundreds of homes without water for days. In all, 12 inches of rain fell, over-saturating the ground and shifted the land under a $12 million health clinic rendering it condemned. In August, President Barack Obama ordered a disaster declaration for the reservation and portions of Hill County.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is covering the entire cost for the recovery, including reimbursing the tribe for any rebuilding costs that the tribe incurred before the federal declaration, Whitford said.

It’s a rare move as the federal government usually splits costs with those in the affected area. The tribe’s poor economic state almost certainly factored into FEMA’s decision, Whitford said.

“I’m really grateful for FEMA’s efforts,” Whitford said. “They were so helpful.”

FEMA and the tribe identified 124 damaged locations on Rocky Boy. Whitford said the tribe has rebuilt nearly a third of those places, including roads, water lines and homes. He added that some projects were rebuilt with higher standards, upgraded to hold up against any future disasters.

Tribal officials have said it could take Rocky Boy two to three years to complete the structural recovery.

Then there are the residents, including some with severe personal losses.

“There’s no way to put a dollar amount on it,” Whitford said.

Whitford said he is concerned about the mold problem that has developed in some homes after flood waters receded. He said some residents are reporting lung problems that could be connected to mold.

The tribe has plans to start construction on a new clinic building this spring. In the meantime, clinic operations have been downsized to an older medical building, located about a mile away.

The new proposed building will be constructed to the same square footage as the damaged facility and could cost as much as $19 million to complete, Whitford said.

It could take two years to finish the new building, proposed in a new location about seven miles east of Box Elder, a reservation border town. The damaged medical building, which was about two years old and cost about $12 million, was located on a hillside west of Agency Square and is expected to be demolished.

The tribe expects to use it’s own workforce to build the new clinic.

In the wake of the flood, the tribe also demolished Agency Dam on the reservation because of concern it was going to fail, Whitford said.

The tribe also elevated a handful of homes and the tribe’s water line has been moved out of the floodplain. About four percent of the FEMA recovery funds can be used to upgrade infrastructure that could fail given another disaster, Whitford said.

There are a host of other building projects that the cash-strapped tribe had to delay because of the flood, Whitford said.

“We’ve got a long way to go,” Whitford said. “It could be worse before it gets better.”