Belle Fourche Police Chief Tom Maunders said Thursday about 10 a.m. that they were asking for a volunteer emergency evacuation of the low-lying Jewett Subdivision on the east part of town and that the fire department was going door to door to ask people to leave their homes.

The city was setting up emergency accommodations at the Belle Fourche Community Hall and Belle Fourche Area Community Center.

Streets with flooding are Ziebach, East National, McCoy Road; at the state highway shop and near the Black Hills Christian School along the Belle Fourche River.

Both the Belle Fourche and Redwater Rivers have flooding, Maunders said.

City and Butte County officials have advised no travel and some city and county streets do have some flooding. Butte County roads are very wet and the request is that drivers forgo travel to protect the roadbeds.

There were at least 3 more inches of rain expected in the Belle Fourche area as of 10 a.m., Maunders said.

Flooding on Willow Creek on East Ziebach Street was threatening Hills Interiors, a home and commercial building center. Sandbagging was ongoing as some water had risen onto floor levels of several of the business's buildings and water was running across the street.

By late morning there was no flooding on the low-lying Roundup Grounds sports complex as it had done in the 1924 flood that raised the Belle Fourche River enough to cover the rodeo arena. Another serious flood came in 1995 in the Belle Fourche area.

Meanwhile, the Butte County sheriff's office was advising no travel throughout the county as swelling streams and rivers were leaving many rural roads impassable.