TETON ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM. Ricks College Idaho State Historical Society History Department, Utah State University TETON DAM DISASTER.

Transcription

1 TETON ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM Ricks College Idaho State Historical Society History Department, Utah State University TETON DAM DISASTER Shanna Shirley Interviewed by Christina Sorensen August 11, 1977 Project made possible by funds from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Idaho State Legislature through the Idaho State Historical Society and National Endowment for the Humanities

2 UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY & RICKS COLLEGE HISTORY DEPARTMENTS COMUNITY IMPROVEMENT THROUGH LOCAL HISTORY ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM INTERVIEWER AGREEMENT In view of the historical and scholarly value of this information contained in the interview with shan Sh, I, C,h65-t-ina &71---cey\ (name, please print) (interviewer, print) knowingly and voluntarily permit the Milton R. Merrill Library at Utah State University, the David 0. McKay Library at Ricks College, and the Idaho State Historical Society at Boise, Idaho, the full rights and use of this information. Ch71 C. fath Interviewer's Signature &utc-1 Date

3 UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY & RICKS COLLEGE HISTORY DEPARTMENTS COMMUNITY IMPROVEMENT THROUGH LOCAL HISTORY ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM INTERVIEWEE AGREEMENT You have been interviewed in connection with a joint oral history program of the History Department, Utah State University, Ricks College, and the Idaho State Historical Society. The pur- pose of this oral history program is to gather and preserve information for historical and scholarly use. A tape recording of your interview has been made by the interviewer. A verbatim typescript of the tape-will be made and a final typed and edited transcripts, together with the tape will be made and a final will then be filed in the Milton R. Merrill Library Special Collections, David 0. McKay Library at Ricks College, and the Idaho State Historical Society in Boise. This material will be made available according to each of the depositories' policies for research be scholars and by others for scholarly purposes. When the final transcript is completed, a personal copy will.be sent to you. * * * * * In view of the historical and scholarly value of this information, I, jig-av/44-3.6,1r.ley, do hereby assign full (please print fill name) and all rights of this material to'the Merrill Library at Utah State University, to the Library at Ricks College, and to the Idaho State Historical Society at Boise, Idaho, for scholarly purposes according to each of the institutions governing policies. Interviewee'i-Signat5rg 8 /7-77 Date

4 ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWEE: Shanna Shirley INTERVIEWER: Christina Sorensen DATE: August 11, 1977 TETON DAM DISASTER C: Shanna, how old are you? S: I'm thirty.. C: And where were you born? S: In Idaho Falls, Idaho. C: Where do you currently live? S: In Rexburg. C: How lona have you lived here? S: For seven years. I lived here before with my family, my Parents live here. I lived here for two years and then I was away at school and working and moved back about seven years ago. C: What was your address prior to the flood? S: 109 S. Center. C: And what is your address now? S: The same. C: Did you own your own home prior to the flood? S: Yes, C: Do you have a family? S: Yes, we have three boys. C: How many of you were at home at the time of the flood? S: Well, I guess there was just two. I was expecting the third one, and since then he has been born. So I guess there were just two little boys.

5 SHIRLEY -2- C: Now, prior to the construction of the dam, were you aware of the debate of the dam? going on. Were you in favor of it or opposed to the construction S: Well, I was aware of it. I think I read more propaganda against it. It seemed like every maaazine I picked up was talking about the environmental aspect and how much beautiful land was going to be ruined. I think I was more aware of that, although I live here and I guess I should have been more aware of the farmers need for irrigation. I just hadn't, heard their viewpoint so much as I had the environmentalist. I don't know as I was set one way or the other, butt I think I empathized more with the environmentalists'. I love beautiful country and we do a lot of outdoors things. Although I've never been up there and didn't really know what it was like, I assumed it was beautiful and it would be ruined. C: Looking back, do you recall the day the dam broke? Where were you reaction to it? when you first heard the news, what were you doing and what was your S: Well, I was at home with the youngest boy and he was just a year and a half, I guess. My husband and the older little boy who was just nearly three were out at our farm, which is about three or four miles out of town. I hadn't heard a thing. I had just finished washing my hair and my mother called me. She lives here in Rexburg and she sounded really upset and she said, "I guess we've got something really horrible to fact today." And I couldn't imagine. She told me the dam had broken or was breaking. She sounded kind of panicked. My mom's a widow and she is a little older and many times she sounds panicked over lots of things, so I was not alarmed at all. I just

6 SHIRLEY tried to calm her down and I just said, "Now Mother," you know. She was almost crying and was just really upset. I think the thing that mainly upset her was my one sister and her family had gone fishing that morning and we didn't know where they were. That's what she was really concerned about was this sister and her husband and their three little children were gone and we didn't know which way they were gone. They had gone fishing up under the dam before and, of course, that's what she was thinking, how to get in touch with them. So I said, "Calm down." Mack wasn't there and I'd find out from him. I turned the radio on then and wasn't even alarmed then, because everything that I kept hearing was, "Expect a couple of feet of water to come through Rexburg." We live a block from Main Street, the block between Rexburg and Ricks College. They kept telling the people to go to Ricks College and we were the block between. Our house is up higher than most homes anyway. I didn't think we'd even get any water. I didn't even think we'd get any water at all! I went ahead and fixed my hair and waited for my husband to come home. That was my first reaction, to try to calm my mother down. C: So what happened then when your husband did come home and what was the course of events after that? S: He came home and had heard it on the radio and I said, "What should we do, is there anything to be worried about?" He said he really didn't know, we should just listen to the radio and kind of judge by that." It was funny because he said, "We left the water on in the

7 SHIRLEY -4- garden, we'd better go out and turn the water off." I said, "Well, that's silly, if there's going to be water," but he was worried about the pump. It's an electrical pump and he didn't want it to short out and start a fire or something. So he said, "Just listen to the radio and I'll be back in just awhile." So he left and went out and turned the water off and came back in. By then they were telling people to evacuate. I guess it was getting to be around noon and they were telling people to get out, "Don't take anything.".the radio announcer seemed so panicked to me and I since have thought, at first it kind of madene upset that he sounded so panicked, but then as I thought, the people who are really under the dam up at Wilford and everything really needed that panicked voice in order for them to get out in time./ Where as me, I lived a block from the college and I had three hours after I got up there where I just sat and did nothing. So I'auess it really was good that he sounded that way because it got the people who were further up out in time. I talked to my mom two or three other times from the telephone and, of course, my husband's office is up here. on campus and I said, "Well, Mom, get what you think you need and meet us up at the office. Bring some water and some food and, you know, maybe a blanket or something." In the meantime, some of my brother's friends, my little brother's on a mission, but some of his friends were home and they thought about my mother being a widow and went over to help her. They took a lot of her food storage and things that were downstairs and sat them up high on things and I really didn't do, anything. I went in

8 SHIRLEY -5- the bedroom and my vacuum was sitting on the floor, and I thought, "Oh, I'll just sit it up on the bed." I grabbed like three pair of my favorite shoes and three them up on a shelf and took all my long dresses and just flipped them up on the rack and grabbed my husband's good shoes and sat those up and then looked at two or three other things. Like even our movie film, we take a lot of movies and they were in plastic bags on the floor and I thought a little bit of water wouldn't even hurt those cause they're in a plastic bag. Then I got sleeping bags and diapers and bottles and things that I thought the kids would need, just for the afternoon. I was sure we'd be back that night. So I thought, I'll take the sleeping bags and they can stretch out and have naps. I took some crackers and cheese.and apples and oranges and just a few things that I thought the kids would need that day. Then we went up to my husband's office and he just kind of dropped us off and got us settled there and then he said he'd better go up and see what he could do to help at the Manwaring Center, because he works here and has felt somewhat responsible for helping organize the people and so he just left us. Of course, we listened to a radio, he had a radio in there and we listened and it kept sounding so dramatic. He said things like, "Teton's completely gone. Newdale and Teton, nothing left, nothing left." My brother lives in Teton and we hadn't been able to get a hold of him all morning so we assumed they were gone, that they were out of there anyway. It just made me feel bad, cause I just thought their home and everything is gone for them. But yet, I still kept thinking it wasn't going to be that bad where we lived. Of course, we were

9 SHIRLEY -6- still concerned about this sister of mine and her husband. Mack would check back periodically to see how things were going and kind of tell us things that were happening. Then the radio went out. Their tower got washed away so we didn't have any communication of what was happening. We just kept watching out the window. His office was in the Sporie Buijding so it was right there and we kept looking out the window down to Main Street. I just didn't know just what to expect. I didn't know whether to expect some water just kind of floating through or gushes of water. I'd never been in a flood, never, you know. My husband came back about the time the water came. We could see it start to come. He said he'd been up on the hill and had seen it out by the drive-in. He said it looked like a ten, 12 foot ocean wave coming in. That kind of worried me. We'd Teft one of our cars home in the garage and he said, "When I saw that coming I ran home and drove the other car up here." He sat some of the furniture up like some of the chairs and things he could sit up on table and couches. But he couldn't pick the couches and big things like that up. Then we just took the kids and went out on the lawn. We live just on South Center. So right down here at the corner of Sporie we could stand there and watch our home. We had a white pickett fence that was, I'd say about maybe four feet high out in front. I kept on saying, "If it gets higher than the fence then it will go in the house." Our foundation was about five feet high. I knew as long as I could see the top of the picket fence, we were okay. I could see it the whole time. What had happened I guess, is that it floated up or something, I don't know. We did get a couple of feet of water through our upstairs.

10 SHIRLEY -7- I kept standing there saying, "We're all right. We're all right. It's not in our house. It's in our basement." I knew everything down there would be ruined. Of course, at the time we just thought it would be just water. We didn't realize how much mud and how really awful it would be. I just thought it was water. We just stood there. As I observed people, there was no one panicked. Everyone just visiting and talking kind of laughing. It was just not panicked at all, or even concerned at the time. I still thought we'd be going back that night. I mean, you don't realize what it's going to be like. Then Mack Said they were assigning rooms up at the dorms for people who wouldn't be able to go home and I said, "Oh, we can just stay in your office." He says, "No, we won't be able to go back home." It took a long time for it to sink into me that we wouldn't be going back home. It seemed so funny that we wouldn't be going back after even a day or two. I thought, "There are a lot of people without homes and they need dorm rooms, well be able to go back." So I was really glad that he'd said, "No, we are getting a dorm room.* So we got one of the rooms up at the girls' dorm with cooking facilities. We said that my mom could stay with us, so we were assigned that way. It was pretty late at night by then, you know evening anyway, so we kind of got situated there. C: What did the water look like when you first saw it coming in? S; Well, the first thing I noticed as we were looking down College Avenue and you couldn't really tell, it just looked like a lake. It didn't look like it was moving fast at all. I'm sure that all the buildings and everything had kind of slowed it down so it wasn't aushing like it was before. It was moving, because pretty soon we saw a Greyhound

11 SHIRLEY -8- bus and it was floating down Main Street. It was aoing quite fast. So you could tell the water was really going and there were pickups and campers and lots of things floating by So you'd realize that it was deep and that it was moving. It kind of looked like a lake. There were people in boats, kind of rowboats, they had pulled the boats out and were floating around. It looked very calm. It didn't look like it had that much power really to do what it did. C: Did you see any animals while you were watching, either dead animals or animals that were trying to escape the floodwaters? S: I don't think right then at the time. I think shortly after maybe some cattle came wandering down through. But I think the 15, 20 minutes, half an hour, I don't know what it was, we just stood there and watched. I didn't see anything, just cars and things. C: When were you first able to co back to your home? You personally? What did you see when you went there and how did you feel about that? S: We didn't go back that night at all, because of little kids. We just got settled up at the dorm and then I think we went over to the Manwaring, and had soup and little crackers or sandwiches. I can't remember, but we really had quite a bit of food that the kids had eaten and bottles and things so they weren't really too bad. But we did go over and have some soup. I didn't have pajamas or anything to put the kids in. I had plenty of diapers, so we just let them sleep in the sleeping bags in their clothes. Of course, my husband wanted to go down and see and he had gotten a pair of wading boots or something - and said he'd go down and see. I just listed some things that would be nice to have, like pajamas and just some things he could grab if everything was all right. He went down that night and came back

12 SHIRLEY -9, and said that it got in our house. I asked what it looked like and he said it was just muddy on all the floors. Through the whole thing I never once shed a tear or felt bad over the items in my home. It just didn't bother me that much. And I kept saying, either I don't have anything to cry over if it were lost or else my earthly possessions just don't mean that much to me. I don't know which it was. I just didn't feel bad. I kept thinking about people who really must feel bad and, of course, at that time we didn't know how many deaths there were; We didn't even know for sure about my sister. I never felt panicked about that. I just somehow had a feeling that everything was okay familywise. I really don't think I was in shock or anything like that. Because r don't think I'm a real emotional person./i shed tears over my children or things like that. I'm just not a person that cries over very many things, I think I was just thinking of all those poor people that have lost people. There in the first few hours we just didn't know. If we'd have known at the time how really well the things would turn out, there would have been a lot less worry and everything. For days after we didn't know if the government would pull through with any kind of reimbursement or anything and so I think that's where the torment came. You just thought of all these people and all the homes and possessions that were gone. We didn't know. Of course, now looking back, you see how good people have been treated and how the government has been more than fair, I think. It would have eased the worry and strain right then, but we just didn't know,

13 SHIRLEY Wasn't it the next Sunday? Yes, we went back Sunday, We got the car and, of course, the streeets were just muddy and sticky, It-just looked so horrible, That's when I was dumb founded like when we drove down Main Street. I just couldn't believe the destruction, It didn't look like it could have been so destructive. Then we went to our house. I think Mack was a little worried that I would be upset, I was worried about the boys. I thought they would feel bad when they saw everything. They were so small that they weren't really _aware. It was kind of an exciting experience. I noticed that the boys swing set was gone and they loved to play out:in the yard and. swing, so I didn't say anything. Mack and I didn't talk about it. But they didn't notice it so I didn't say anything to them, The thing that I felt worst about was that white pickett fence was gone. Because we worked for three summers; one summer we built it and one summer we painted it and the week before we had landscaped it all. It had wire inserts that had shrubs and flowers and we just had gotten to the point that. we had been working three years to get it to, The gate that opens in one little section up near the house is all that's left. I still didn't cry. We just talked about it. Then when we went in the house, of course, there was two inches of sticky mud. The water had receeded down, the basement was still about half full. We had just used our basement mainly for storage.. We had rented it to college girls. It was an apartment and, of course, they weren't there,/ All our food storage was down there and all our \\ winter clothes. I was pregnant, so I wasn't wearing all of my regular clothes so they were down there All my baby stuff, my baby crib and everything that I was going to need for this new baby was down there.

14 SHIRLEY -11- I thought, "Darn that's too bad." I didn't feel devastated. I thought, "Easy come, easy go." I just didn't feel that bad about it. I am not a very emotional person but I think I'm a sentimental person. One of my hobbies is to keep scrapbooks and baby books and movies. I really like to keep things like that, I always have, my whole life. I was so glad they were all upstairs and all up in closets so they were high up. I think if I would have gone in and all my wedding picutres and all my baby pictures and things would have been gone, I think, I Woujd have cried. Like I say, we left our movies there and they were a little wet but they looked like they could be,.-cleaned up. So that didn't even bother me. I kept thinking for three hours I sat up there at the college and had I known how much time I had personally just being a block away from high ground, I could have gotten out when it was coming to my front door. You just didn't know and, of course, I had those two little boys I had to take care of and couldn't have left them down there. I could have saved a lot of things and really done something. I keep saying if I go through another flood, I'll know what to dc$. I didn't know what the summer was going to be like, but I thought it was going to be a fun summer. It took me about a week to realize that I was going to be living in the dorms. I left things in sacks and I left things in suitcases. I didn't even think about putting things away on shelves or in cupboards, thinking that we are going to be here for awhile. It took a few days for things to really sink in. C: Did you have any involvement during these next few days or weeks with the Red Cross and the LDS Church and; of course; eventually with, the government? What did you think about their effectiveness; the various, organizations and how they dealt with the problems?

15 SHIRLEY -12- S: It was funny to all of a sudden become a victim. They kept saying, "Are you one of the victims, are you one of the refugees." /I just kept smiling and thinking, /"Here I am a refugee." I didn't think I was that bad off. I kept hearing talking to other people like they would say, "There's nothing left, we can't even get out to where our house was but people have been out there and said that the house wasn't even there." And I kept thinking, "Mow that's what's bad." But my home was still there and there was still a lot of good things left. When water is two feet up it really ruins a lot of things. Basically, I felt like everything was still in tact. Of course, there were no grocery stores, and I felt like if there was a grocery store I'd go buy my own food. I didn't feel like I was that destitute. We're members of the church and we've always payed our tithing and our welfare and all these things so I didn't feel bad about taking supplies, not that they owned me, but I felt like that's the purpose of it.1 I felt good that food was being brought in and that I was able to feed my family. It seemed that people were so good everywhere to give you food, milk for your babies and whatever you needed. We used the welfare until the grocery stores were open. We knew that our paycheck would still be coming in from Ricks College, so we felt like we should go to the grocery store. I think it was only about a week, a week and a half that Safeways was open. Uhen the store did open, then we just went ahead and bought our own food. We were a little concerned because we didn't know what would be happening with government reimbursement. You heard so many rumors and talk, talk, talk, No- body really knew what was going to happen. You felt like the

16 SHIRLEY -13- government probably would pull through but you never understand sometimes what they are going to do. They said if you would go over to the Red Cross that they would help you get the things that you would need immediately.' Our boys' beds were ruined because they were just little single beds and the water came right up over them. We had money in savings, but we have a rental house just across the street from where we live that we rent to ten college girls so we knew we had two places to put back. I went over to see what the Red Cross was and they just interviewed you and asked you things like, "Did you lose all of your clothing, some of your clothing, half of your clothing, none?" They just kind of went through questions like that so I just tried to tell them basically what I knew and they give you vouchers for certain things and the thing I remember they give us money to buy beds for the boys, which I appreciated and thought that they were really good and how they were really helping. They were people who didn't even have an Yclothes to put on except the clothes they had. I had clothes to put on and that sort of thing. I really didn't feel like we were in too bad of a situation. I did take the vouchers. When President Kimball came, they kind of talked like they wanted the church members not to take handouts and not become dependant on all of these organizations, so I tried to keep the feeling in the back of my mind that you could really take advantage if you wanted to. There were rumors of lots of people that were. I didn't judge anybody or didn't know what anybody else was really doing. / I felt like I want to take what they will give me and that I will feel good about but I don't want to become a leech sort of thing. When we can provide for ourselves we tried to and we did.

17 SHIRLEY -14- I felt it was a really marvelous experience to see what happened in a disaster like that. First of all, how the Church worked. So many times we have heard about disasters in South America and how the Church was first on the scene with blankets and food. You heard of the welfare system all of your life but I've never really seen it in action. And you've heard of the Red Cross and donated to the Red Cross all your life. It was really a gratifying experience to see how, in that much time, how many people, like the Army units, the National Guard, how fast all these people were in here. It was really kind of exciting. The only bad thing as I look back on it, I was in my third month of pregnancy and I was really really sick and kept saying, I can either. take pregnancy or the flood but it's awfully hard to take them both. People who read this or whatever, those woman that feel that way when they're pregnant will understand. You feel so tired and so yukky really. I thought this is kind of exciting and kind of fun if I didn't feel so awful. I was always so tired all I wanted to do is sleep. That was my only bad thing. I aet that feeling in my stomach and just remember how I felt. It's really hard to explain. It was hard to take care of the kids. It's always harder to take care of children when they're not in their familiar beds and familiar toys and surroundings. So they were a little harder to take care of. Like I say, I don't think they were really old enough to really realize what was going on. Children that were six and seven were the ones that were really having a hard time, cause they were just old enough to understand what had happened but didn't really understand that things might work out in the end, where some of the older children could see.

18 SHIRLEY -15- They were just a little harder to take care of because first of all their daddy was never around and that was a real trial for them because they're really close to him. We just didn't see him. In fact, all summer long it was really bad that way. As the summer progressed and things were a little cleaner down at the homes, I could take them down, but there for so long, you heard stories about contamination and don't let your children play. So I just had to keep them up at the dorms and I'm really grateful we had such a nice place for them. We were there in the dorm and they had a lawn to play on and I had a kitchen to cook. So things were really great. I couldn't complain that way at all. We really had it so much better than a lot of people here. Lots of people here and other disasters like that. A block away there you are in a nice comfortable two bedroom place and a lawn for your children to play on. C: How long were you in the dorms and what did you do when you left there as far as housing? S: My husband is Dean of Students and he is over housing and so he was making decisions about when people should be out. They felt they had to in order to aet ready for the students. I can understand that. So they said, I think it was the first of August, people had to be out or the end of July. A lot of people were quite panicked. Some had HUD housing but they were all waiting for trailors and everything. Like I said, before, we had a rental house for college girls and we were able to get a contractor to come in right away. He repaire d our rental house first, we did that first. We had that all carpeted and everything put back by the first of August. We lived in the dorms for June and July and then we moved in that rental house that was just across the street

19 SHIRLEY,16, from our own home. They had started working on our home, too. The cleanup was, all done. We didn't even worry about doing our basement, we just cleaned it up and tore all the walls and everything out and really concentrated on getting the upstairs, new carpets and new wallpaper and paint and baseboards and little things like that.. We didn"t want to move in with little kids, it is so hard to try and paint or anything when you have little kids, because they get into everything. So we -lived right over at the rental house until the day college girls started arriving. Of course, they had all written and called and were so concerned that they woulnd't have any housing, We informed them that it was put back and that they would have a place. to stay. I think. it was about the 19th, or 20th, of August or it could have been later, when the girls started coming, we moved back. to our home, We didn't have drapes up and I didn't have my washer and drier in, but a few things like that, it was just in a matter of days that we had most everything put back. We had it O quite comfortable. The yards were kind of a mess still. By then the scare about contamination and stuff had passed. r felt fine about letting my kids go out and play. One side line, we had found their swing set clear down by the college football field, the day after the flood or whatever and brought that back. The swing still swung but that's all that worked, but the kids had some familiar toys. Life kind of went on. In fact we just barely, a year and how many months later, got our basement put back. They worked on it in the winter. We rented the basement to a young couple that just moved in a couple of weeks ago. The yard is still a mess. C; Did you or your family participate in the actual cleanup of the homes O as far as gettingqthe mud out and everything or did you have any volunteers?

20 SHIRLEY -17- S: We had a lot of help. Like I said, my mother in the meantime wasn't flooded in her upstairs. Her whole basement was flooded. It came within an inch of getting her top floor. She had moved home in a week after the flood, by the time they got the power and the hot water on, she had moved home. She was really busy with her home and she had my uncles and my brothers and my one brother in Teton, of course, wasn't even hurt. They said that Teton was completely gone and the town wasn't even touched with water. He was fine and so he could help my mom and another brother from Blackfoot -and a couple of my uncles. So she was taken care of and then she had a lot of volunteer help. So we kind of concentrated on ours. My sister and her husband, by the way were out to Dubois and didn't even know the flood was happening. Their home was damaged even worse than ours. It was one that got torn down and they lost a lot of things. They had to concentrate on theirs and we concentrated on ours and my mom and my brothers did hers. I had children to take care of and they were so young that they couldn't be down there and it was awfully hard to find baby sitters or anyone to take care- of your children because everybody was in the same boat. They were all working and any children that were old enough that you would leave your children with were out helping their parents or whatever. Then, too, I felt like they really needed me. They really felt insecure and they felt uncomfortable being left._ They would have with their grandma but she was too busy to take care of kids. So I really didn't do much of the cleanup myself until it got to the later stage- where we were down at the rental house and then I did a lot of doing my drapes and my curtains and pots and pans, cleaning stuff to put back into the house. As far as the real cleanup, no, I didn't because I felt like I needed to be with the children. My husband was very much

21 SHIRLEY -18- involved, he was gone all the time. He didn't sleep much at all. The college gave everybody that worked there a week off with pay for those that needed to get their homes cleaned out. We had two to clean up. We had a lot of volunteer help. They would ao by wards in our ward not too many were in the flood, because our ward starts going up the hill and there were just a few families. The people in our ward were really good to go around and help. They would get pump machines and they would do our house and then go across the street and do the neighbors'. My husband would go around and help. It was a community thing. He kept a journal during that time and just wrote down what happened that day and who came to help so we would know. Except when all the people came from Utah, we tried to keep their names, we didn't have adressed or anything. We tried to make sure that we thanked everyone that helped us. He was really involved in the cleanup and a lot of problems up at Ricks cause that was his job too. He felt like he had to help with the housing and the problems with the Manwaring Center up there. So he was busy. We were really bored, the kids wondered where their daddy was and he would come home after they were asleep and be gone before they were awake and so that was hard on them. There was just nothing to do. I've thought since, I should have brought my sewing machine up or had some things going. Like I say, I just didn't feel like doing anything. It was really boring in a lot of ways. C: In your dealings with the government in filing your claims and such, do you personally feel that you were fairly treated on your claims?

22 SHIRLEY -19- S: Yes. We didn't do our claim right away. We used all of the savings that we had and then we got those SBA loans and we got $5000 for each house. Of course, that really didn't do it at all but places of business were very understanding and would let you charge, understanding that we would be filing a claim, because then we knew that the government was going to reimburse us., Of course, we didn't know for sure how, because nobody had filed a claim. We just waited, in fact, we didn't turn our claim in until last Januarty or February. We just felt like, we used the loan money and had most of our bills paid but there were were some. We kept draing money out ofsavings and things but like I said, people were understanding and they knew that we were getting our claim. By this time our other little baby was born on December the 31st. We were busy. We kept saying, we've got to get our claim in, we've got to get our claim in. We heard stories of how people had been treated fairly and most every story we heard, like my mother had turned her claim in and my sister turned theirs in and people that Mack worked with had turned theirs in. Of course? people don't talk about how much they filed for. But they would say? 'Oh l they cut us $500 on this? but we don't really feel too bad about it because they were so fair on everything." Then too? there was a lot of caution from the general authorities and from stake presidents and from everyone to be really fair and not take advantage. So we were really concerned about making sure that we didn't do anything that was unfair or anything that we wouldn't feel good about, We were really cautious. We had verifiers come and a county guy come and tell us what we should claim and what

23 SHIRLEY -20- we shouldn't. For an example, he told us to claim all of our bedroom furniture because the water had gotten up on them. The wood was starting to split, but it's really expensive nice furniture. Our piano, there is kind of a water mark, and you can see how it's kind of ruined the piano, but I knew we wouldn't throw them away and we knew we'd still keep them and still use them. We didn't feel good about claiming the whole thing although the verifier told us to. So we put so much down for damage or whatever. Lots of times since I've looked at the piano and I've thought it doesn't really look as nice and you claim so much for damage. Of course, you try to polish it up and everything and it still doesn't look as good so I kind of wonder if I'm feeling good about that. I thought maybe we should have claimed it all, or at least enough to trade that one in to get a new one, which we didn't do. We felt like over all they were so good in everything. You can't gripe. We feel really good about it and it took quite awhile. The people that put their claims in immediately got them back a lot faster. It took about two and a half months before we got our money back. That seemed a little long. I think they had a huge amount of claims right then. They just couldn't get over all of them. C: Without naming any names, of -course, do you know of anybody personally that filed fraudulent claims? Were you aware of any body? S: I wouldn't say personally. I'm sure people who did file fraudulently aren't going to be talking about it. You hear people talking about, did you see what kind of house they got in place. I don't judge anybody. Who knows what they had before? Who knows? My husband and

24 SHIRLEY -21- I talk many times how we really feel good and we don't feel like we did anything dishonest about it. Even if I look at that piano and think maybe I should have gotten a new one! I feel really aood as far as having no guilt feeling that I took advantage. I didn't hear of anybody that I can think of specifically. You hear little stories. C: Shanna, as you have watched Rexburg recover over the last year, what sort of positive things do you think have come about as a result of the flood for the community as a whole, and maybe what kind of neg- ative things? S: Maybe I should just say the negative first. It seems like the economy is just booming. It seems like inflation almost, housing and material, cost of building and land. It seems like the prices of land have gone sky high, seems like we're in a bubble right now. I keep wondering when it's going to break. Are people going to be hurt by it? Are people overbuilding? Things are going sky high, the things that I've mentioned. I don't know enought about the economy and what happens when the bottom falls out and all this, I' really don't under- stand. I hope that it can keep being progressive and slack off aradually instead of something happening that will make a lot of people lose their homes and their money. A lot of people are getting a lot of nice things. At the time of the flood, people were so thankful that people weren't in the flood, if they weren't. I've heard some people now that weren't in the flood now wishing they were, because they see what people that were in the flood are doing; new homes, new furniture, new

25 SHIRLEY -22- clothes, new cars, new this and that because theirs were lost. People that weren't in the flood don't really realize, if I had a choice I would go back, even with the money we aot and the improvements we'll be able to make, I would still rather not have been in it. It was just a hard experience. It wasn't anything that was so horrible that we couldn't get through. Any bad experience you go through, I think will help you become a better person. I hope that people who weren't in the flood don't become so jealous and ridicule the people the way they are coming back. Maybe people aren't doing things exactly up to par. Maybe some people are building a bigger home than they had before. But maybe they were going to do it anyway. In our case, we were goipa to build a new home. We've talked about it and this is probably when we would have built it anyway. We are starting a new home in the fall. But it wasn't because of the flood. We live right in the middle of town. We have a two bedroom home. We have three little boys that need to grow up out in the country. My husband's father has some land that we're going to build on. We would have that anyway. I almost feel that people are going to be critical of me because we are building a new home, thinking that they got all the money from the flood. That isn't true. We've had to use the money to restore the homes. Of course, you have money left over because a lot of the things you're not going to replace. You do a lot of the work yourself, they give you money like if you hired somebody to come in and do your lawn and that sort of thing. And, of course, the money they paid you for cleanup. So you do have some money and we will use some of that money for our new home because we have it. But I still feel like it's fair and we earned it. I hope there aren't bitter feelings between the people. I really haven't seen too much. I'sve just heard a little bit.

26 SHIRLEY -23- The positive things, I think, the people were able to upgrade their stadards in some way. Some of these older people that have some of these old traditional homes now end up with one of these Boise Cascade rectangular things. I think I am more of a sentimentalist and I like old things and I think a lot of improvement has been made in town, like Main Street looks a lot better. But you ao out in some of the residential areas, and true, there are new homes, but they are not the standard of old homes that make a town really neat. These new little things that really are fine for people to live in, but they're not anything that establish character in a town. Basically, I think, people are try ing to rebuild with character, like Sugar City, there are a lot of beautiful, nice new homes out there and there are a lot in Rexburg too. C: There's been some speculation as to the cause of the dam breaking, of course, most people believe that it was a man made disaster although some people have expressed the belief that it was perhaps an act of divine retribution. How do you feel abtut that? S: I think that when we come to earth there are a lot of bad things that can happen. I think the Lord has put us here for experience and I think he can stop or do anything he wants to. I believe in His power. I don't think he stops everything that man does. He doesn't stop wars a lot, he doesn't. I think that we were blest that it happened when it altd. I really don't know if the Lord decided to let it happen in the day, rather if that's the way it was really going to happen. There have been a lot of floods at night and a lot of people have been killed. I just really think it was a mistake that they made in the construction, a logical mistake. I don't blame anybody. I couldn't have built the dam. I'm sure they did the best job they knew how to do and I don't think they tried to build a dam so it would break. I think it was just something

27 SHIRLEY -24- that happened. I think we were very blest that we didn't lose anymore lives than we did. I don't think the Lord caused it to happen, I don't think that He was glad that it happened. I don't feel that he determined that much about it. C: Now there is talk about the dam being rebuilt; would you be in favor of that and if so, in the same location? S: That canyon up there is ruined anyway. It's just flushed; there is nothing very beautiful up there anyway. I guess they might as well go ahead and rebuild it. I just assumed that the same mistake would not be made again. We're building out where if the same thing happened, we would be washed away We're building out in the valley this way north three miles out of town and that's where the thrust came. If we're doing that, I have enough trust in my fellow man that the same thing will not happen. I just assume that those who know and have studied why the dam failed and everything will also be the ones who will determine if and where it will be built again. I imagine it'll be a vote or something about how and where. Hopefully they will make sure it will not happen again. I would feel fine if they rebuilt it because they still have the same problems and the canyon is not what it was before, so they might as well cover it up with a resevoir. C: As you look back over this last year and the experiences you've had and your family has undergone, what ways do you think that this whole experience has changed or affected your values, your attitudes, your beliefs, or perhaps your personality? S: I think the main thing that I've learned from this experience as a family is that we can get through bad things together. They tell us in church that this is the way the last days are. That we'll have a

28 SHIRLEY -25- lot of hard things to face. Just the fact that our families were safe and we didn't have to face death and there were some people that did, but we personally didn't. Anyone that was killed or died because of it was no one that we even knew really. We didn't have to face anything like that. Facing loss of material things just didn't bother me. I think that pleases me. We don't have anything that valuable to lose or I'm not that attached to worldly possessions.. That made me feel good., It just didn't bother me that much, The fact that we can now see how things are being put back, you feel like you kind of had a part in rebuilding it, You worked hard and it looks nice again. I know my hsuband feels that he has a lot of work to do in the yard and in the rental house. It was kind of an experience that I think unifies people. You oo throuah similar experience and you have empathy for other people and you're happy for them when you go and visit them now and see the nice things they have and how just last summer all they had were the clothes on their back. You can see that they are happy now and the future looks bright. P think it was an experience that people came through rather well. I really think it wasn't the test it could have been. That is the government pulled through and gave everybody money. You look at a lot of these disasters around and the government does not come through and how different we would all be, if nobody got anything. The church would have helped more if the government hadn't. I think they would have provided people clothing and food for quite a longer time and helped them aet furniture. The Deseret Industries were helping people get furniture and thinas like that. I think the church would have helped more.

29 SHIRLEY -26- I think there would have been a lot more emotional trauma and mental torment if people hadn't been given money to build new homes, to buy new furniture and to replace the things that could be replaced. I still think there is still a lot of mental anguish, if people are like I am, losing things that couldn't be replaced like their geneology and their keepsakes and their things that mean something to them that way that can't be replaced. Still, I think because they did get the money to replace things that they needed daily, I think people have felt fairly aood about it. I've often wondered how people would have felt and what the attitude would be if we just had to start over on our own like so many peole, like this Jamestown flood they had. I'm sure they got small interest loans or whatever, still the government doesn't come in and given them thousands of dollars. I really think that's really made a difference. People have said that it's because the majority of the people are LDS and are strong and all this. I believe that and I believe that they tend not to be bitter towards things that happen as much as maybe people that don't have this trusting faith in the Lord. I still think the main thing is that they were reimbursed and that's what has helped people come out of it without having hard feelings. C: Well, Shanna, I don't have any more specific questions. Is there anything else you'd like to say right now or thoughts or feelings you'd like to express? S: I'm glad it's over. I can sit here and say that it wasn't really that bad but on some days if you could have come and interviewed me when I was really sick and felt horrible and the children were cranky; they wanted to play in their own bedroom and wanted to be on their own swings and they would wake up in the night screaming because they didnt' know where they

30 SHIRLEY -27- were. It was a hard summer. But I don't think we're any worse for it. My little boy that is now four, his favorite story is to have us tell him about the flood and what happened. I don't know if the little guy that was one and a half could even remember, but he says he can. He wants to hear about the flood too. I think it's been a bia thing in our lives. I wouldn't say it had a negative effect or a real positive effect. I don't know if I'm just a bla person or else I'm just one that is in control and can take things as they come. It didn't effect our lives as far as losing each other or loved ones. I think that would have been just hard. I'm sure I would have had real feelings because that would have been really hard. If you talk to the people that lost loved ones like the boys that were fishing, I don't know how they'd feel. That would be a really hard thing. For me, I felt it left no scars. I hope it didn't psychologically on my children. I doubt it did. Maybe people who had older children, that was really hard for them and they understood what was going on, maybe they can look back and say their children grew from it or it was really a psychologicallly hard thing for them. I feel just fine about it. I feel like it was something that happened and we were able to get through and it has surprised me how fast the town has come back and the businesses. I think it's marvelous, I'm glad and I really love the town. I'm glad we're still here. We never once thought of leaving, of course. It makes me feel Good to see that a year later people cannot tell, in fact, friends come and you almost wonder if they believe you about how bad it was. Even me, I have forgotten until you see some of the movies and slides and you think, it really was that bad. I think over all it was an experience that helped make our town a little better. You've heard a lot of peole say, "If it hadn't been for the flood we wouldn't have been

31 SHIRLEY -28- able to do this or that." It helped in a lot of ways. You have to look at the positive things and not think that it hurt in these ways too. I think that we came out of it without any scars. C: Thank you, Shanna.