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 Robert Thompson Interviewed by Richard Stallings August 18, 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 COMMUNITY 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 4c RA-P7 - ' 5 I, -k"tc -4 A 2(2 5'7-0( (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. A/C,.. Interviewer's Signaure /6 7 7 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 purpose 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,, do hereby assign full (please print full 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's Signature I I c=1"( I Date

4 ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWEE: Robert Thompson INTERVIEWER: Richard Stallings DATE: August 18, 1977 TETON DAM DISASTER S: Robert, would you please spell your full name? T: Robert Thompson. S: Where were you born? T: Calgary, Alberta, Canada: S: How long have you lived here in the Madison County area? T: About 12 years. S: Robert, how old are you? T: 38. S: Do you have a family? T: Yes, a wife and three children. S: What is their age range. T: The oldest is almost fourteen and the youngest is almost eleven. S: What is your address? T: Right now it is Teton, Idaho. S: Are you living in the same place that you were at the time of the flood? T: No. We lived in Hibbard at the time of the flood. S: Would you describe the location of your home in Hibbard. T: The old P.T. Parker home, it was built in A big stone home that sat in the field right behind Harold Rigby's new home. S: Robert, what do you do for a living? T: I am a builder. S: Do you own your own home?

5 -2- T: Yes, we just purchased this home. S: Do you also own your own business? T: Yes. S: When the dam was being considered, there was a certain amount of controversy. There were those that opposed it and those that supported it. Were you aware of this controversy? T: Yes, I was. Of course, I suppose most of us were aware of the opposition from the conservationists and so forth. I thought the dam was an excellent idea in concept. I felt that the damage done to the wildlife, or the displacement of wildlife, would be more than offset by the benefits that would be derived from irrigation water and what power would be generated from the dam. I thought it was a good idea. S: Did you or any member of your family have nay premonitions or feelings about the impending disaster? T: Not that I recall. S: Where were you and your family when the dam broke? T: Myself and my son, Scott were at the residence of Wylvan SEeley. We were involved in building a patio for Sylvan at the time. My wife and two daughters, Anita and Amber, were at the house in Hibbard. While Scott and I were working at the ' Sylvan Seeley job, my wife came to see us, to see how the job was going. The two girls were at home. S: When did you learn of the breakage of the dam? T: We learned of it while we were working on the patio. Mrs. Seeley had the radio going at the time she was listening to the radio and we were working and my wife was standing there watching us and we were kind of having a conversation and Mrs. Seeley came running out of the house and said, "They just announced on the radio that the Teton Dam had broken." Our first reaction was that it was somebody that was playing a joke. Couldn't hardly comprehend what she was saying. Then

6 -3- we ran into the house and listened to the radio ourselves, listened to the broadcast. The radio announcer was quite excited in the process of explaining to the people what had happened and explaining to the people what they should do. S: What did you do at that point? T: We were right in the middle of trowelling the patio, finishing it, so we couldn't leave at that time. I discussed the situation with my wife and she decided that she would drive back out to Hibbard and check on the girls, see how they were and see if they were aware of the situation. S: When did you realize the seriousness of the disaster? T: Well, it really too awhile for it to sink in. When we finally realized that something really serious was going on, they began announcing on the radio that people were to leave their homes immediately and not try to gather a bunch of stuff together, they were to get out and congregate at Ricks College campus. Their initial reports were somewhat excited, I guess. They announced first of all that Newdale had been wiped out and Teton City had been wiped out. When we began to hear these reports, the seriousness of it began to really sink in. Of course, we found out later that Newdale and Teton hadn't hardly been touch. Of course, Newdale hadn't been touched at all and Teton just very minor damage. It gradually began to sink in. S: Did you continue to work at the Seeley place until the job was finished? T: Yes, we worked there until approximately 1:00 o'clock. My partner Theron Garrett was working with us, he lived in St. Anthony and they were announcing on the radio that road travel along the main highway was going to be impossible because of the flooded conditions. They advised everyone to go to Ricks College. We both left Seeley's together, I assumed that he would follow me up to Ricks College, but at the last minute he decided he would go out Highway 88 and drive around the Plano way and see if he could get around the flood, and that is what he did, and went back home to St. Anthony. When we arrived at Ricks College I didn't

7 -4- know where my partner was and I assumed that my wife and girls were listening to the broadcast and would come to Ricks Eollege, so I wasn't concerned about them at that particular time. S: What did you do then? T: Scott and myself went up to the college, found a place to park my truck. We decided that we'd congregate with all the rest of the people and go see what was going on. There was quite a congregation of people up on one of the high hills, up adjacent to the college and they were standing out in an open lot looking over the countryside to see if they could spot the flood waters as they would approach. At first, you -couldn't see too much, then gradually in the distance we could make out a long brown line, stretched across the countryside. Covering a tremendous amount of area and then gradually the brown line'd get closer and closer until you could actually see that there was a great deal of water approaching. Gradually surrounding the countryside and it was quite a sight. S: Could you describe the atmosphere, the attitude of the people that were gathered around you? T: Well, at first, I don't think anybody was realizing how serious the situation was. There was a lot of speculation as to how much water was going to come by and some people through, well maybe there might be a few inches of water in Rexburg's Main Street and some thought, well, maybe there would be a foot. Their announcements projections, the radio fell far short of what actually happened. At first there was more of a carnival atmosphere, a holiday atmosphere. Everybody talking and laughing together and not aware of how seriously the situation was a just having a good time, looking and talking together. S: How long did you stay there on the hill, observing the water movement? T: We stayed there, at least two and a half hours, watching the water getting closer and closer. The mood and atmosphere of the people change drastically as the water got closer and closer because as we watched, we could see that there was a tremendous

8 -5- volume of water coming by and finally we watched the progress of the water as it flowed through the land. We could see houses, house trailers, and buildings, barns, all sorts of things floating in the water, bobbing in the water like corks. We realized you could actually see houses floating in that water and then it really sank in. We really knew that this was a terrible thing that was happening. S: What were you thinking about at that point? T: Well, at that particular time, I was more concerned with what other people were thinking and how other people were reacting. I wasn't thinking in terms of what was going to happen to myself or my family or our property, or home that we were living in. Because I couldn't conceive of that much water being at that particular place, not until later. But I looked around and observed people around me, some of them still quite unconcerned, laughing and talking, carrying on conversations and pointing. Gesturing and so forth. Then I noticed other people that I knew were standing on the hill, watching this terrible thing happen. One particular couple, that I observed, watched as their home became engulfed in the flood waters and was torn from it foundations and floated down the stream. That was Farrel Davidson and his wife, that stood upon the hill and watched this happen. Had their arms arund each other and his wife was crying and they were talking about it was a brand new home, a beautiful home. I had helped build the cabinets that were in the home and I was acquainted with them. Then I saw other people that were in the same situation. It was interesting to me to watch the different reactions and see how people were responding to this thing. All the way from happy people in a holiday atmosphere to dejected people who were seeing their life torn away from their very eyes. It was a tremendous contrast. More emotion than I could absorb at the time. It was impossible to comprehend. S: At this point you're still not too concerned with your home and property? T: No, I wasn't. We stood and watched the flood waters approach and get to the point where they crossed the Yellowstone Highway. You'd look off in the distance and

9 -6- you'd see several of the buildings that we were familar with. One in particular was Showcase Interiors. As the water approached the Yellowstone Highway and crossed it, you could see the water rise up on the Showcase Interior, until all you could see was the orange fascia on the roof sticking out of the water. The water rushed on, you could see other buildings torn off their foundations and scattered and all the trailers and houses and buildings come floating by. Then you'd look off in the distance and see the water rush on past the Yellowstone Highway and begin to proceed towatds Hibbard and I could see the volume of water there and I knew from the geographic location of Hibbard, I realized that there was going to be a tremendous amount of water there. Then I became quite alarmed about the home and our possessions, but still not about my wife and daughters because I assumed that they were at the college. We hadn't attempted to go looking for them yet. We were having this interesting time observing. S: So you stayed there a couple of hours, then what did you do? T: Then we decided that we'd better go up to the college and hunt for my wife and daughters. Thought, well, they might be alarmed and worry about where we were, wondering if we got to town or not. So we went up to the Manwaring Center and they had announced that all the families were to come there and register and then you would come and inquire if your family had registered. So we went and in quired, there was no record of our family, of my wife and daughters. They informed us that a lot of people had come and hadn't bothered to register yet and so we just continued to look. We made several tours of the campus and in between looking for my wife and daughters, we would go down to the water's edge and observe what was going on. Then in one of our tours around the college, we happened to come in contact with one of Harold Rigby's boys and we asked if he had seen our family and he said they didn't come. I couldn't believe my ears. I said they had to come. I was sure that they were going to come. He said, "No, we left and we talked with your wife and she had said that her and the girls were

10 -7- going to stay there. They didn't feel like the water was going to be very high and so they were going to stay there.? I became tremendously alarmed then because I knew that the volume of water that was going through there. I got to the point where I was almost frantic, you know how you react when you think that your family's in danger and you get terrifically excited. They had the army people up to the National Guard Armory, they had set up a command post there and they were in charge of the rescue helicopters and so forth and so we ran up to the Army center and inquired whether they were flying any rescue missions. I explained the situation to them, told them my wife and daughters were out in Hibbard and had stayed there and I wds worried for their safety and wanted to know if they could fly a helicopter out and pick them up. They couldn't seem to make anybody understand what the situation really was, course they were involved in all these other problems, communications and the other people who were coming in and all the officials that were arriving there to organize this. We'd go from there back down to the college and look for someone else. I made about four trips back and forth between the Army Reserve Center and the college, just almost as fast as I could run. That's an uphill climb and I was pretty fagged at that time and finally I ran into Bishop Pedersen, who was principal of Madison Junior High School and explained my situation to him and he said, "Come with me and I'll see what I can do." We made another trip up to the Army Reserve Center and he went right in and got a hold of the person who was in authority and told him and said, "We've got to have a helicopter. This man's family is out to Hibbard in danger and we want you to fly out and pick them up. Ten minutes later I was in a helicopter on my way to Hibbard to pick up my family. Jim Sessions, who's involved in college security work, he was worried about his home, the homes of his neighbors, and so he got on the helicopter with us and he flew with us out to Hibbard to pick up our family. We had a much better perspective of what was really happening from the helicopter because you could

11 I THOI1P S ON see such tremendous area and huge volume of water and the damage. I remember as we flew over the town of Rexburg, looked down and could see this tremendous jumble of logs and homes and trailers all piled up together. It looked like a hugh giant had just got in there and stirred everything up with a stick. The logs from the Rexburg Lumber Company were strewn around like a bunch of matchsticks, so, if you've ever heard of the game pick-up sticks, where you throw them up and try to pick them up. That's what it was like and hay all scattered around and jammed up against building and trees and debris. As we flew out over the countryside we could see the damage that was being done, that had been done. Animals and automobiles and looked down there and wonder how many people had lost their lives in all that catastrophe. So many thing going through your minds. As we flew out to Hibbard, I was really apprehensive, wondered if our house would still be standing there, wife and daughters are alive and well. As we flew out over Hibbard and could see that the largest volume of water had passed and that it had began to subside a little bit. There was still enough water all around that we couldn't land the helicopter. As we flew over there was my wife sitting out on the fence with her pant legs rolled up past her knees waving at us as we flew over. Pair of binoculars slung around her neck and we circled around and hovered out behind the spud cellar and I dropped down out of the helicopter and waded through the water to the house. Told everybody to grab whatever they could and we're going back to the college. So I hustled them all out. The girls climed out through a bedroom window. We waded out to the helicopter and we handed them up and loaded my wife and myself on and flew back to the college. It was really a rather happy ending to the situation. A lot better than I ever expected. S: As you flew over the area, did you see any animals in the water? T: Oh yes. A lot of animals. That to me was a after I got over the initial shock of my family and found that they were safe and were able to think again, -8-

12 -9-- that was the most terrible thing to me was to see the animals. A number of them had been drowned and see them struggling in the water. We got back to Ricks College we walked down to, into the lower part of town. By that time the water had passed a lot of the higher places. Smith Park was free of water at that time. There were a lot of well, not a lot, several houses that had deposited themselves in the middle of Smith Park, in the trees and so forth. Then just across the street, going north of Smith Park, there was still quite a bit of water in the lower places. We walked up to the edge of the water and all this debris around and looked out into the water and you could see a big holstein cow struggling in the water. She had been in the water for a long time. She was a large cow and it's a tendency for large Holstein cows to have huge haunches and she had been in the water long enough that she had begun to bloat. The large bolume of gas in her haunches had caused her to float up sideways in the water. She was having a terrible struggle trying to swim. Holding her nose up as high out of the water as she could get it, practically all that was out of the water. We saw her struggling and called her and tried to encourage her and she would come against a log jam or something and she'd try so hard to climb up on it to get out of the water. We just stood there and every muscle in your body straining for this poor cow. We called her and tried to encourage her, as she struggled in the water, she made sounds that you don't associate with animals in sight. She made just terrible, heart wrenching sounds in her effort to get out of the water. Then we called to her and called to her and tried to wade out and tried to help her. In the end she finally came up against the log jam and tried to climb up, she just didn't have the strength to make it and we stood there and watched she just gradually sank lower into the water and lost all of her strength and finally drowned and succumbed to the water. It was a terrible experience and I couldn't help thinking as I was watching this poor cow struggling in the water how many human souls are in this same situation. This is the

13 NIAINNEREENNIIINNEREENNIIINNEREENNIIINNEREENNIIINNEREENNIIINNEREENNIIINNEREENNIIINUNisso -10- prevailing thought that went through my mind as I watched this. S: Where'd you and your family stay in the next few days after the flood? T: We were checked into an apartment house, right next door to John Ray's Pizza Parlor, I don't remember the name of the apartment. We stayed there. They were handing out blankets and so forth, supplies that had been flown in, shipped in from Deseret Industries. They were handing out these blankets and we got a blanket a piece and went into this apartment house. "Course it was during the off season and they didn't have any bedding or equipemtn or anything to make. That's where we stayed. S: What are you thinking about at this point? Do you see yourself as destitute, everything you worked for, gone? T: Not really, 'Course I had seen the situation, the home where I lived and I had talked with my wife and daughters and they had managed to salvage a great deal of stuff. Possessions in the house, had carried them upstairs. Things like a television set, a stereo, and small appliances and so forth. They really worked hard to pack all this stuff upstairs. My wife has a piano she prized very highly and she realized that the water was going to get into the house, she wondered what she could possibly do to save the piano. We had a couch also, it wasn't in the best of shape. It served us well and so she had to make a decision there. She decided that she would rather save the piano than the couch. So her and the girls laid the couch out flat, it was a fold-out bed, laid it out flat, slid it over by the piano and tipped the piano over on its back on the couch and saved the piano. We had well, maybe as high as eight inches of water in some places of the house. probably the average is about six. Went through the house and deposited quite a bit of mud and so forth, but they saved the piano. One thing that they didn't manage to save, of course, in the excitement things get forgotten. We had our collection of books out on the back porch and

14 they were down low and all the books got apoiled and we felt bad about that. Our situation was extremely good compared to other people. I was more concerned about the losses of my neighbors, about how they felt, what they were going to do. There were people there who, from the Hibbard area. at Ricks College, whose homes had been totally destroyed, whose livestock had been swept downstream, whose possessions had been scattered all over the countyside. Had lost practically everything that they owned, their memories. I felt heartsick for the older people. An older couple who lived together and whose only precious things, practically, were their memories, their family snap shots, their family heirlooms, all these things had been swept away and lost forever. This is what really bothered me. After the flood waters had receded, you'd see these poor old people out in that muddy field, poking through the debris with a stick, hoping to find one single momento of their past life. My situation didn't even count compared to what they had lost. S: How long did you stay in these apartment that you mentioned earlier? T: If I remember correctly, myself, my wife, and my children stayed in this apartment for one night and the next day we took our children to Jackson, Wyoming where my wife's folks live. We left the children with them, except for our son Scott. Then we came back, to the college, and we stayed in the girl's dorms for approximately three days. S: Then were you able to move back to your property in Hibbard? T: Yes, we went back and my wife and children did most of the cleanup work after that. I was involved helping other people around the ward get their homes back in order, pumping out basements and shoveling mud and so forth. My wife and children had most of the responsibility cleaning up our house, which really was not in that bad of shape compared to other people's homes. It wasn't too long until we were able to clean our home up and move back and stay there.

15 I -12- S: That was the next question. Would you describe the damage that you suffered at your home? T: The carpets were all ruined, as I mentioned before, we lost a pretty good collection of books in the water. All the large appliances were ruined: the washer, the drier, the dishwasher, freezer. Yeah, the freezer was all right, the motor on it was up high enough that it wasn't ruined, but all the motors in all the other appliances were right next to the floor, they were all ruined. Relatively we had quite a small claim. We had an old car, sitting out in the yard, it's still serviceable, still used it, but it was ruined. Had an old snowmachine, which was in the same category, old but still serviceable and it was ruined. That's about the extent of what we lost. S: How did you go about cleaning up your property? T: Oh, we just moved in with shovels, hoes, brooms, whatever we could utilize to clean up the mud, peel the rugs off the floor and push them out the back bedroom windows right into the backyard. Wife and children just got busy and scraped the mud up with shovels and pack it outside, threw it out. Mopped up as best as we could. S: Was it a depressing work? T: Yes, quite depressing. The smell was terribel, just terrible. The smell stayed in the house up until the time we moved out. "Course it was an older type house. Didn't have a basement, was built quite high off the ground, and there was probably a four foot crawl space between the floor and the ground. Of course, this was deposited full of mud and debris and water. We, in that particular spot, were right in line with a lot of the debris that came from places like Meyer's Brothers feed lot which didn't add to the perfume very favorably at all and it was a depressing job. I remember as I went around to the neighbor's homes and helped them clean up. I was really impressed by the all around good spirits. 'Course because

16 I -13- of the Church organization, everybody was organized. Everybody knew what they were doing, they had been given a job and they did that job well and they were cheerful, and got along real well. I remember I worked quite long and hard in the basement of Kendall Ballard's home. 'Course Kendall's always a cheerful sort anyway, and he's always got a wisecrack, and a funny thing to say about any situation. He kept everybody laughing. We cleaned out their basement and worked hard and worked at repairing several of the pumps around the community, so we'd get waterworks back into order and back together. Getting right in there, we had to get in the final cleanup and getting out the mud and wash it. It was a depressing job, but they handled it really well. They were quite cheerful. S: Were there any problems that you found to be very frustrating or difficult to do? T: There was a problem of getting machinery and pumping systems back in working order. Took a long time to take these motors apart and clean them out and wash them real carefully and put them in the oven and bake them for a while to dry them out, put everything back together and spend all this time doing it and turn them on and in five minutes have them burn out. And be without a water supply. The most frustrating thing, I think, to my wife and to most of the other women involved was the lack of water to use to cleanup. If you had water, you had to go haul it from town or somewhere. They just couldn't use their own pumping systems. It was just about drove them crazy. S: Did you receive any help, in cleaning up your property or did your family pretty well take care of it all? T: For the most part, the family took care of it. There were some good ladies that came from other areas that came over and gave my wife a hand. Her mother came from Jackson and worked real hard with her to help cleanup. Our situation was so we could pretty well handle it ourselves and we took care of it. S: Was there quite a bit of volunteer labor in your particular area?

17 -14- T: Terrific amount of volunteer labor, I couldn't believe the volume of people that came through there to help. They arrived by the busload, by the truckload. So many at time the bishop couldn't keep them all busy. S: You think this had an impact on the community? T: Oh, it had to have. It was the most tremendous factor for the upbuilding of morale, I think of anything else. If the people that had to be forced with cleaning up all their own messes and grubbing everything out all by themselves without the good spirits of these other people that came to help, I don't think they could have handled it. I think that their depression would have set in and a lot of people might have sat down and simply given up. In the face of the cheerful good spirits and help of these people who came, everybody had just changed everybody's attitude and everybody pitched in and worked together. They thought, boy, if these people are good enough to give 'em their time and energy to come help us out, we just as well work as hard and we possibly can. I really would like to give these visiting people who came to help, the highest praise that anybody could give. Because they truly expressed their brotherhood and love of their fellowmen. Some of these people sacrificed a lot to come and help. The came great distances, they left their jobs. Some instances they even jeopardized their jobs, because they just left and came to help. It was tremendous and we just have to sit and thank the Lord for the goodness of other people. S: Kind of rebuilds faith in you doesn't it? T: Oh yes. S: Did you have any unusual or uplifting experiences of anykind? T: Well, there were so many thing that happened that I don't relly think that I could single out anything that was particularly unusual. Although I did hear some interesting stories. We had one neighbor, we went to help clean the mud out of their home and she said that after the flood, they went back to their home and everything was jumbled. Their living room, kitchen, everything else in their

18 THOMP SON -15- house was just terrible. In their bedroom, one wall of this old log home, they had bought and had been remodeled, one end wall was pushed completely out of the bottom. She went into her bedroom, and she said, there set her bed, in the exact spot that she had left it, with all of the covers up, just as smooth and nice as could be, the pillows were still rolled and looked like it had never been touched. 'Course everything was wet, when she went in and was going to strip her bed down, so they could get everything. She peeled the covers back and she said, under the sheet there was a layer of mud. The whole area under the sheets, a single layer of mud. Everything else was clean, it looked like it had never been touched. It just looked like the bedding had been lifted up, the mud deposited, and set down. There are other funny stories about people who had gone back to their homes and one individual went to his home and there on the kitchen table was a dead cow. Other instances, there was one in particular, I don't remember whose trailer it was in Hibbard, but it had been moved probably a half a mile down stream and came to rest and they got in the home and the tables had been set, right after breakfast, still had the dishes on the table whey they left. They went back and everything was in perfect shape the wat they had left it. Salt shakers were still on the table, nothing's disturbed, just like nothing had every happened. Yes, the trailer had floated about a half a mile downstream. There was a great many unusual experiences. Other people had experiences a lot more exciting than unusual than I did. I can't single out anything more. S: Did you personally suffer any vandalism or looting, or any forms of lawlessness. T: No, I was surprised at the very minimal looting that took place. 'Course our law enforcement departments worked tremendously hard. The people of the community worked with them and set up roadblocks and everybody watched everybody else's property. I'm sure there was vandalism that went on but nothing ever occured to us. We received no damage at all.

19 S: What kind of government aid did you receive after the flood? T: We turned a claim into the Bureau of Reclamation and we received compensation for our losses from the Bureau of Reclamation. S: That was the only agency, then, that you dealt with? You didn't worry about the Small Business or...? T: No. S: Or Housing and Urban Development. T: Had we owned our own home, we were renting at the time, but had we owned our own home, and it would have been destroyed, we would have approached probably, the Small Business Administration. Probably borrowed money to build a new home, but our situation was so that we didn't require these things. S: How would you evaluate the Bureau's effectiveness in dealing with you? T: We thought they did an adequate job. Somethimes you wondered what type of system they used to'decide what they were going to pay for and what they weren't. Some people's claims were accepted and paid without any argument, the next person's claim would be scrutinized and cut sometimes several thousand dollars. We put our claim in, of course, for the washer and dryer and the appliances and so forth that were ruined. I believe, the only thing they cut our claim on was for some of the books that we had. They felt like there was no concrete proof that we had the books. We didn't really argue with them. I felt quite bad about it, vause some of the books we had were quite valuable, things that are pretty hard to replace. We felt that their service was good, and we appreciated it. We're not going to fault them at all. S: Did you have any cause to deal with any state agencies? T: No. Well the only state agency that I dealt with was the employment department. That was the only one. S: How did they work with you? Were they professional? -16-

20 -17- T: Yes, they were very professional. Of course, the people that were employed by the department, most of them I knew. The ones that I dealt with I knew, I knew them quite well. They realized what my situation was. They were really easy, good, to get along with. I thought that the Red Cross people did a very efficient job in their help with the people. Everybody seems so willing to help everybody else. A lot of the local people had been hired by the Housing and Urban Development people and they worked quite closely with everybody. It makes it a much easier situation when you're personally acquainted with some of these people. S: How about local officials, did you ever have any cause to deal with them, county commissioners or any of their agencies? T: No, not personally. Our problem was really didn't involve anything that they could give us any particular help with. Of course, we knew the county commissioners and we felt they were doing a good job. They would be involved in working with bishops and stake presidents and so for th. We didn't have any involvement personal level with them. S: You mentioned the Red Cross, did you receive any assistance from the Red Cross? T: No, we didn't require any assistance from them at all. There were a lot of agencies that were there and they had the Food Stamp program set up which a lot of people used. We had no need whatsoever to use their help. We didn't need the Food Stamp program because we had adequate funds to take care of ourselves at that time. We had very little personal need for these agencies. S: Other than staying in the dorms did you receive any help from Latter-Day Saints or other church groups? T: Yes. We received help from ward members. We stayed one night with one of our ward families who had not been hurt at all by the flood. We felt that we were well taken care of. Another thing I might mention, pardon me, was the program that the church set up in the ward's situations for taking care of the people's needs. I'll have to go back and reiterate here, take back something, some of the

21 -18-- things that I've siad. We did receive a great deal of help on the ward level, because of the food gropram they set up. We congregated daily at the churchhouse in Hibbard and had meals; three meals a day, prepared a cooked and taken care of by the Relief Society and the ward members. Everyone received this help. It was a great source of strength to meet with these people and partake of this food and the friendliness and the good atmosphere. We also, while we were staying at Ricks College, ate three meals a day at the college which was provided by the college and other agencies. They were responsible for preparing these good meals. So, actually, yes, we received a great deal of help from these people. You tend to forget these things, tend to take them for granted. We were benefited greatly by these things. S: As you met with these people there from Hibbard, what kind of attitude prevailed, what kind of spirit prevailed? I mean, they had been working hard, they had been in the muck. T: For the most part, a very good spirit. We say very few people who let this get to them and become dejected and forlorn. There were a few people who came to the church house who would sit and cry and feel sorry for themselves. Some of the people who had the most, felt the worst. For the most part, the spirit was tremendous, people were happy, they were cooperative. They were working together and they would arrive at the church house covered with mud, slime, and come in smiling and laughing. I'll have to mention that our bishop of Hibbard, Bishop Hugh Parker, I don't think anybody could have been more perfect for the Hibbard situation. He's a very down to earth man, very plain spoken, doesn't beat around the bush. He tells it exactly like it is. He gets people going. If they even permit anybody stand around for five minutes, he would give them a job. He would order them down the road, and put a shovel in your hand and put you to work. This is the way he handled the whole situation. He didn't permit any nonsense and it was just a good situation for the people.

22 TxoriP S ON S: With the church pretty well running the cleanup operations on a ward lever like this, how were non-mormons in the area treated? Were they ignored, were they included? T: Everyone, as far as I could see, was treated exactly equal. We cleaned up the places as we came to them. Nobody received better treatment than anyone else and actually, when you came down the situation, there was all these people congregated together, completely eliminated the class situation. Becuase the rich and the poor congregated together and they all came in one change of clothes. They all came with no food and no means of supporting themselves at that particular time. That eliminated the class situation and 'course sometimes it's hard for people to swallow a situation like this, but it did us all a lot of good. I don't ever remember conscientiously making any comparisons between Mormons and non-mormons or any other race or creed or religion. Everybody was there together. Everybody was helping and everybody was being treated the same. S: Do you feel that any who assisted in the recovery might have taken advantage of the situation? T: Yes, unfortunately, people do take advantage of these situations. There are always the unscrupolous who tend to follow a disaster situation. They go from different parts of the country to another. When they heard of a.disaster, the -19- move out. Move into this place and milk the istuation for what they can get out of it and then they move on. There are a lot of situations in this area where unscrupulous people took advantage of old people and other people who weren't familar with building codes and building practices and how they were supposed to pay for a building. A lot of people were taken for a lot of money. I know of 4 one case where an elderly widow was left holding a bag for $40,000. A contractor moved in and convinced her that he could build her home and talked her into advancing him the $40,000, charged all the materials to her name at the lumber company, then he skipped. He went, she was left holding the bag for $40,000. He didn't

23 -20- even pay for his material. It's unfortunate that these things happen. There was a lot of building that took place that was done in a very shoddy fashion. Not up to standard and not up to code. These things happen, but that's unfortunate. S: Were you aware of anyone who might have filed a fraudulent flood claim, without divulging names? T: No, nobody, personally that I was aware of. As far as I know, everyone was real honest in their flood claims. S: As you look back on it, what would you see as the most valuable item, most treasured item that you lost? T: Pretty hard to select one thing above another. I had one book, that's called the Norman Rockwell Book that I treasured very highly. A couple of other books Ithat...automoblie books that I loved and treaured that I lost. But nothing else. S: How do you see the disaster today, was it some type of divine punishment or was it a natural disaster, a man-made error? T: A person could argue that point for days. I've heard pros and cons both ways. I suppose that there's always a purpose for something if you search far enough. I suppose that it could be considered a warning. I thought it was miraculous that a thousand people weren't drowned. I speculated to myself and to other people as to why the dam broke at that particular time. We asked ourselves, what if it had broken at midnight or what if it had broken in the dead of winter? Then like I say, you can speculate on this forever, I don't really consider this as a warning. It was, as far as I'm able to determine, a man-made disaster. A result of errors in human judgement. Errors that I think were made. People were actually aware of, that due to human nature and the dislike to be shown to be worng and to be caught in a mistake, people tend to cover up these things. Bad judgements were made and this was a result of those bad judgements, as far as I'm able to determine. S: Do you have any bitterness?

24 -21- T: No. I suppose had I lost a member of my family or had lost all of my home, I might have cause to feel bitter. The thing that was brought to my mind more forceably than anything else was the absolute temporary basis of our personal possessions. I found out how literally small they were compared to other things that we had; compared to my family, my wife and my children, anything that I was able to accumulate in a material way on this earth wouldn't be worth a pinch of salt. This was brought very forceable to me. Then on the other hand, I ovserved how hard it was for some people to part with their personal possessions. I noted that in a great many cases after the flood there was such a great concentrated effort on the part of so manypeople to regain their material status as quickly as they possibly could. Sometimes I feel like the experiences that we have are lessons that we should have learned, are forgotten too quickly in the face of all the money that came into the area. I think we should take time to reflect very seriously on how lucky we are, how serious it could have been. What we could have stood to loose in reference to our loved ones and our families, compared to our material possessions. You know, you just can't make that comparison. I have no feelings of bitterness, I have no cause to be bitter. S: How has the disaster changed your life? T: I believe very firmly that the disaster had the effect of giving me an opportunity to have a better business than I would have had before. It opened up terrific opportunities and I was able to go into partnership, become self-employed, to build a pretty fair business, make good money. I reflect on the flood and I see where, in most cases, in my eyes, it's turned out to be a tremendous blessing. When you generate the millions of dollars into an area as quickly as it has been generated in the space of a little over a year, it's got to have a tremendous effect on everything. When have you ever seen the economy of Rexburg more prosperous than it is now? We're supposed to be in the middle of a terrible drought, when have you ever seen better crops than you have now?

25 -22- When have you seen people look more prosperous? The unemployment situation in this area is at the lowest it's ever been, I would suppose. There are plenty of jobs, people, contractors have been able to keep busy, some of them busier than they want to be. You just can't handle it all. It's going to change I'm sure. It can't last forever. A boom situation peters out and dies after awhile then we'll be back to the same status that we were before the flood. It will level out. It's too bad this prosperity couldn't have been spread out over a ten year period, but that's not the way it works. People have to get back into their homes. You look around you now, drive around the country, look at the luxurious homes that have been built where there used to be an old rundown, beat-up home, now there's a brand new beautiful modern home. It's improved people's situations a lot. That way it's been a blessing. S: How's your family after the flood? Are they stronger? Or have you not noticed anything, any changes? T: My family always been strong. We tend to kind of take things as they come to a great extent. It couldn't help but make people closer together. I felt closer to my family, than I had done for a long time. Because I had thought seriously that maybe I had lost them and that's got to bring you closer together. We've always had a tremendous amount of love in our home, we're just that type of family. I think we're stronger now than we were a year ago in a lot of areas. Whether or not it's a result of the flood, I wouldn't say. S: How about the dam, shoule we rebuilt it? T: I really am not sure. I still believe the concept wassound. We needed the dam there. We needed it ehn, and we needed it as much or more now, especially in the light of the dry season. You look around the country and see some of the counties that are burnt up and without water. The dam would be a tremendous benefit. It would've been a beautiful thing had it been built properly. If they were to go back in the same area and if they were able to erect, say, a

26 THO.IPS ON -23- concrete dam or another dam that would stand up, I would be in favor of rebuilding another dam. It would cost moeny. But then the people can overcome a situation like that. S: Robert, thank you very much. This tape will be placed in the libraries at Ricks College, Utah State University, and the Idaho State Historical Archives for use by future researchers.