Multiple Montana counties are mulling disaster declarations following major crop damage from last weekend's subfreezing temperatures.

Yellowstone County Commissioner Jim Reno said he had a teleconference Thursday morning with representatives from 17 other counties where last week's hard freeze injured sugar beets and potatoes still in the ground.

The full extent of the damage is still being determined, Reno said, but Yellowstone County and others will ask Gov. Brian Schweitzer to submit a request in the next few days for federal disaster relief.

"Boy, if these were banks, we'd ask for a bailout," Reno said, noting that crop damage from arctic temperatures stretched from Idaho to North Dakota.

Schweitzer signed an executive order Thursday allowing beet trucks in southeastern Montana to go 30 percent over their normal weight limits so more beets could be hauled to refineries, which are hurriedly processing frozen sugar beets before they go bad.

The beets would normally wait for processing in piles, but frozen beets have a bad-apple effect on piles when stored for long. Mike Hoffer, of Western Sugar Cooperative, said it isn't clear yet how extensive the crop damage is.

"At this time, we are processing frozen beets," Hoffer said. "We aren't going to make any comment on the damage."

Before the freeze, farmers were preparing to harvest a record crop. And crystal sugar prices were also at a 30-year high.

But the harvest, which began in earnest Oct. 2, hit trouble after only a few days when rain hit, making local fields too muddy for work. Then, the freeze came with roughly 80 percent of the crop still in the field.

The state potato crop also was damaged.

"I'm sure that we are going to submit a request," said Joe Skinner, Gallatin County commissioner. "I hearing anywhere from 25 to 75 percent of the potatoes left out in the field are damaged."

Skinner, a former potato farmer, said roughly 20 percent of the potato acreage in Gallatin County was awaiting harvest. Some farmers were close to done. Others were just getting started.

Sheena Wilson, the governor's deputy chief of staff, said she hadn't received any county requests for disaster declarations yet, but expected they were coming.

Montana's lone congressman, Republican Denny Rehberg, said he had the U.S. Department of Agriculture standing by to help, but he needed a declaration from Schweitzer.

Wilson said the governor would forward county requests to the USDA as soon as he received them.

The counties with potential crop damage are Beaverhead, Big Horn, Broadwater, Carbon, Choteau, Custer, Dawson, Gallatin, Lake, Madison, Powell, Prairie, Richland, Roosevelt, Rosebud, Sanders, Stillwater, Treasure and Yellowstone. Representatives from those counties spoke with Rehberg's staff Thursday.