ENNIS -- The mayor of Ennis blasted Madison County officials for keeping town residents in the dark Sunday as rumors floated that a surge of water from a dam breach upstream could inundate the area.

"I was never, ever called or informed about anything -- all of us are disgusted," said Ralph Hernandez, Ennis mayor. "They dropped the ball right and left."

A headgate failed on Hebgen Lake Sunday, sending water flowing downstream and raising the river to spring runoff levels. The failure did not threaten the dam, engineers said.

But in town on Sunday, numerous business and homeowners were packing up their goods or moving them higher in the home as the river rose. Rumors abounded that the dam could be failing and would send a surge of water that could flood the town.

"There was a panic," said Cammie Sterzick, owner of the Ennis Trading Post downtown. "A lot of people were really worried."

Hernandez said while an emergency center was set up at the Madison Valley Rural Fire Department station in town, no one would tell him anything even after he sought information. His home phone and the town office were inundated with calls, but he knew nothing until an 11 p.m. informational meeting at the center.

"It was a total disaster and they're going around patting themselves on the back," he said.

The river on Tuesday was flowing at 3,660 cubic feet per second in Cameron, according to the U.S. Geological Survey Internet site. That's four times its flow before the dam problem of about 900 cfs and is typical of the flow during spring runoff.

Chris Mumme, county disaster and emergency services director, said it was his call not to contact Hernandez. He said in hindsight that was a mistake, but it took a long time for him to find out from PPL Montana, the dam's operator, exactly what was happening.

"I didn't want to get them in a tizzy over something I didn't know enough about," he said. "I wish we would have notified the town because I didn't factor in the rumor mill and that's what takes over half the time."

However, overall, Mumme said the emergency response was well handled. He said the first priority was notifying campers and floaters that they had to get off the river and that was done within three hours, by the early evening.

And if the dam had failed, the water wouldn't have reached town for more than seven hours. Mumme said officials were working on plans to get people out of town on buses if needed.

"It was as close to clockwork as you can get," he said.

Mumme said he ran the operation from the county courthouse in Virginia City while the emergency center was set up in Ennis. He said dozens of volunteers trained in assisting during a disaster went around town to tell people what was going on.

But several people interviewed said they couldn't get information.

Sterzick said her husband Shad is a river guide and monitored the stream flows carefully. As a firefighter, a lot of people called them for information and they let people know that the surge wasn't anything worse than normal spring runoff.

Carol Bennett first learned that the Madison River was swelling to four times its flow with a call from a local bar around midnight Sunday.

The owner of the Silvertip Lodge said a bartender wanted to know what to tell some patrons who were staying at her motel, which is within 100 yards of the river. But she said no one had contacted her or come to her business to inform them about the dam's problems.

Bennett said she wasn't worried because she'd heard that the Ennis Lake had been drawn down to allow for more inflow. She said she's confident if a major surge was coming officials would have notified the town.

Hernandez said as mayor, he could have effectively spread the word through a phone tree if only he'd had any information from officials. He said he's going to push county officials to make sure its emergency management response is improved.

"I don't want a 'try to do better next time,' " he said. "I want an assurance that this is not going to happen next time."