TETON ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM Ricks College Idaho State Historical Society History Department, Utah State University TETON DAM DISASTER Paul R. Mortensen Interviewed by Fremont Fullmer July 13, 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
UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY & RICKS COLLEGE HISTORY DEPARTMENTS COMMUNITY IMPROVEMENT THROUGH LOCAL HISTORY m ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM INTERVIEWER AGREEMENT In view of the historical and scholarly value of s infafmation contained in the interview with m 4 I t ( S Plo k_tek, 5. e,-k_, I, r;-.e-vvt,:..a, -1- /-- 4:1(--, - (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 Histor- ical Society at Boise, Idaho, the full rights and use of this information. Interviewerts Signature -- ((j 7 7 Date
UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY 61 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 m information for historical and scholarly use. A tape recording of your interview has been made by the inm terviewer. A verbatim typeicript 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, m a personal copy will-be sent to you. * * * * * ; m In view,of the historical and scholarly value of this infororation, I, / 4 < L )1, 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 m Idaho State Historical Society at Boise, Idaho, for scholarly purposes according to each of the institutions governing policies. m /1_7" Interviewee's Signature /7//3/77 Date
ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWEE: Paul R. Mortensen INTERVIEWER: Fremont Fullmer DATE: July 13, 1977 TETON DAM DISASTER: F: What is your name? M: Paul R. Mortensen. F: Will you spell it please? M: Paul R. Mortensen. F: How old are you? M: Thirty-six. F: Do you have a family? M: Yes. F: How many were living in your home at the time of the flood? M: There were seven of us. F: What was your address at the time of the flood? M: Box 294 Sugar City, 10 South Austin. F: What is your address now? M: Route 2, Rexburg. F: What do you do for a living? M: Manage a fresh pack potato plant in Sugar City and lease a six hundred acre farm. F: How long have you lived in this area? M: Eight years. F: Did you own your home, farm, or business at the time of the flood? M: Yes. F: Did you support or oppose the construction of the Teton Dam.
MORTENSEN -2- M: We highly supported it because of this farm that I lease, which is above the dam. I was depending on water coming out of it this summer. F: Did you or any member of your family have a premonition of the Teton Disaster? M: Yes, I felt like something was bothering me. One day when I was planting grain. This farm lays right along the side of the Teton Canyon and I watch it fill all spring, I had a feeling that I should go home and look around my garage and see what was there. That night after work when I went home, I looked ghrough the garage and eyeballed what I had in there. F: Okay, what was your first reaction when you heard that the dam had failed? Did you try to save any household or personal belongings? M: Well, when I first heard it, I was up in the field cultivating and my boss, Paul Nedrow, came down and told me about it. My wife had heard it on the radio and she phoned my boss' wife and then she radioed my boss and he came down the field and told me about it. F: Did you see the flood coming? M: Not until after I'd gone back into.sugar City and got my family and neighbor's family, and another old couple, Brother and Sister Burt Stewert. We went to Kay Baker's up on the hill and we watched it come in. F: When you heard that the Teton Dam had failed, what preparation to save your property or business did you undertake. M: Well, when the wife heard it on the radio, they moved the bicycles and a few other things that were outside, inside the house thinking, well, maybe they would be safe in there, which was the normal reaction of most people in town. As far as saving anything else, the only thing tha* we took with us at the time was a drawer full of the baby's clothes. Other than that we just had the clothes that we had on our backs. F: Did you have any unusual or miraculous experiences connected with the flood? M: I think one of the most unusual experiences was when I came back in town. I
MORTENSEN -3- was in my pickup and my neighbor lady's husband and little boy had gone fishing, Donald Burt and his son, Michael. The wife had loaded our children into our car and Tina, this is Donald's wife, couldn't get their pickup started and so I put her in the pickup with me, her and her little girl and baby girl also. They spent that day and that night and I think through faith and prayers, why Donald came back into the flood area. He had to come back by Felt and Driggs and back down into Rexburg. And about the middle of the next day, why we were able to unite this family back together again. F: Okay, did you see any animals trying to escape the flood waters? M: The only animals that I saw myself was after we had gone to Kay Baker's to the safe ground that we felt like was high enough. I returned back down by Bob Ricks', Brent Bratsman's down on the street there, and I saw some cows and some calves floating down with the flood at that time. F: Were they alive or were they already dead? M: Two of the cows were alive, one of the calves was dead. F: Where did you and your family stay during the first two or three days after the flood? Did you continue to stay in your home during cleanup? M: The first night, we stayed with Bud Leavitt, Bud and Veta Leavitt. Veta and I went to school together in the first and second grade at the old North Salem school and this is how we were associated. Her and her parents used to live in Salem and that's how I was acquainted with her. She invited us because of Teton not getting flooded, they lived at Teton City, and they invited us to spend the night with them. F: Was it any particular action that you noticed peculiar with the cows in the flood? M: They weren't really too far from the bank but didn't seem like they could navigate themselves and get to the bank. They just kind of went with the stream. F: Where did your family stay during the first two or three days after the flood?
MORTENSEN -4- M: Well, maybe what I might add, the next two nights after the first one, we stayed with my cousin, Elaine Stoddard and her husband Ron at St. Anthony. We couldn't find my folks for a couple of days and we went to St. Anthony and located them and all of us were staying with my cousin until we could U get housing of our own. F: How soon after the flood were you able to return toyour property? How did you get there and what was your first reaction when you viewed the destruction of your property? M: Well, I and my little brother came into Sugar City from St. Anthony down Highway 191. We got as far as the old overpass and then the road and the railroad and everything was washed out. We walked in from this point into our packing shed, Ned's Moody Creek Produce, and I checked it over. Then we walked on into Sugar City and this was on Monday morning when we did this. We waded in some water as high as waist deep in order to get into Sugar City. The river crosses at this point also, there at the old overpass. And the first impression I think like most everybody, just a real sick feeling in your stomach to know that everything you'd worked and saved and sweat for had been washed away. F: What was the damage you suffered by the flood? What was the most cherished item that you lost in the flood? M: Well, the damage that we suffered, we bought an older home and put an addition on it just the summer before the flood. The house was completely destroyed. About five feet of water, showed the water level in the house so almost everything, food storage, clothes, dishes, furniture, everything was pretty well gone with it. Some of the most cherished things that we lost were some of our baby pictures of all of our kids. I lost some college football pictures that I cherished very much. Also, some medals that I had won, and ribbons during
MORTENSEN -5- high school and college. We had purchased an old style upright piano from the school district where I had taught. My wife had completely redone it and it was one of the real keepsakes that we had in our house. Also, one of the other items, that I cherished very much was a letterman's blanket. U It was a wool blanket, Aggie blanket that I had received at Utah State for playing football there for two years. F: What did you think about and how did you feel as you watched the flood waters roll through the area? M: Well, we were at Kay Baker's and there were three or four other families there also. At first all we could see was the dust rolling down through and then finally you could see the flood waters. It was everybody's guess exactly how much damage, what was going to happen, what was going to be left, and so on. Being a social studies teacher and seeing some of the films and what happened in the Tennessee Valley and the Mississippi flooding, I had in the back of my mind a pretty good idea of what would be left and it wasn't too far wrong. After we had come back into Sugar City. F: What were some of the problems with which you was confronted? Problems that gave you the most frustration. M: Well, I think the biggest problem to start with was housing. Where'd we go from there? Where were we going to live? We were very lucky and fortunate ending up at a nice apartment at Rexburg at the Teton Chalet. The kids were even more luckier, it had a swimming pool so they was able to swim almost every day. Some of the frustration points of the aftermath of the flood was I think in dealing with HUD, trying to get a trailer set up, being able to get moved in, and all the government red tape that we had to go through, and waiting. Seemed like all we did was hurry up and wait. F: Did you receive any help in cleaning up your property?
MORTENSEN -6- M: Yes, we did, my brother-in-law, my wife's brother, Bud Williams came up from Felton, California, which was a complete surprise to us because we didn't know he was coming. And he was here on the Monday after the flood. Also, my wife's parents, Bob and Nadine Rawson came up from California. They got here on a Wednesday after the flood. Bud stayed the full week and helped us get our stuff out of our house. Virginia's folks stayed about a week and a half until we had everything out of the house. F: Have you had any unusual or uplifting experience during the cleanup operation? M: Well, as busy as everybody was and everybody had their own home to clean out. After I had spent about a week and a half off work, trying to get the housing situated and what little stuff we could save from the house, I went back to work in the process of cleaning up our fresh pack plant. We had a cellar that sits out away from the plant and we had about twelve feet of water that had filled this plus all the debris and what not. Light poles, logs, animals, anything and everything you could think of. We had some equipment in the back end of this that we needed to get out that we could try to salvage. Iona Stake was asked to help Sugar 1st Ward in their cleanup. Their Stake President sent a Michigan Loader to be used by their ward. I had approached other people about coming and trying to dig some of this debris out so we could get some of this equipment out and they refused saying that they were busy elsewhere. Well, Bishop Bartschi, using the Michigan, gave up three hours of his valuable time, which I really appreciate, and highly appreciate. He came in and spent one morning with me, digging the debris out of the cellar so we could get this equipment out of the cellar so that it wouldn't completely be damaged. F: Did you personally suffer any vandalism or other form of lawlessness? - M: Well, we were really upset, the BOR told us to try to clean out our houses as best we could to see if they couldn't be salvaged. We had set some of
MORTENSEN -7- our furniture, it wasn't in very good shape anyway. There was a couch and this upright piano that i had talked about previously that we had set out on our front lawn. The corps of engineers that came into town to do some cleanup supposedly had to have some release papers signed in order for them U to come on your property to clean up. Well, that morning, one of the crews of the corps of engineers came and loaded everything up and so we lost some of the precious things that we did have. F: Did you receive any assistance from the Latter-day Saints or other church groups immediately after the flood? M: Yes, we did. We received help from the Latter-day Saint Church. We ate at the college until we were able to get cooking facilities and what not going in our apartment. And also, we received food from the church until we were able to buy food again. F: Did you receive any assistance from the Red Cross or from any other private or independant organization? M: Yes, we received goods from the Red Cross, clothing, some money vouchers in order to buy shoes and clothing, and some food. F: And what government agencies did you deal with during the recovery operations? M: We dealt with the corps fo engineers on the cleanup, HUD on housing, and the BOR on our flood claim. F: Did you have any dealing with the county or state authorities and law enforcement officers during the flood? M: Oh, not really other than just being checked into the flood area and out again when we left the flood area. F: Did you feel that any who assisted in recovery operations took advantage of you or the government, especially in getting a lot of money without really earning it. Please do not divulge names.
MORTENSEN -8- M: The only rip-off is when the government moves in, why wages jumped way out of reason and the people that were already here in order to do their own cleanup and what not, if they hired anybody, why they had to compete with the government wages. And I felt like we really were taken advantage of on this. F: Without divulging names, do you know of anyone who filed fraudulent flood claims? M: No, I don't. F: Do you feel that the flood was divine punishemtn, a natural disaster, or a man-made disaster. M: I definitely feel it was man-made and I believe it has been proven on the records also. F: Do you feel the dam should be rebuilt? If so, should it be rebuilt in the same place? M: They have a lot of money invested in the place where it is. Engineerswise I don't know if it's feasible of locating the dam there, but I definitely feel the dam should be rebuilt. There are thousands of acres plus recreation plus fish and game, numerous advantages of having a dam on that Teton River. F: How has the Teton disaster changed your life? M: Well, it's been up and down. There was bitterness at first and after realization that we had to keep going in this life and that there are ups and downs in life, it's changed our family life. We're not completely settled yet. We're in the process of building a new home in hopes that we can be in it at Christmas, and if we can, why this will probably be the best Christmas present we've ever had. F: Okay, now have you any personal experiences that you'd like to relate in connection with this report?
MORTENSEN -9- M: Yes, I have. I, being LDS, and having faith in prayer, while we were at Kay Baker's there was my family, Tina Burt and her children who had gone with myself out before the flood had come and there was two or three other families. There were also Brother and Sister Burt Stewert. In watching this flood come down through the valley, it hadn't reached the Teton area, Kay Baker's is about straight south of where Teton is. We could see the dust rolling and everybody was guessing about what was going to happen and so on and so forth and we all decided that maybe we should let the Lord take a hand in this in helping us. So we went in Kay Baker's house and offered a prayer and in that prayer--i'll never forget it as long as I live--they asked me if I would give. the prayer and I was prompted by the Holy Ghost to bless the people of this valley that no harm or accident would come to them, also that their lives could go on and they could progress that this wouldn't be a real detrement to them. And, now being a year after the flood, why you can drive through Sugar City, you can read all the new article you want about the flood, actual deaths of the flood, six people, eleven total. At the time, there were on the news media, thousands of people that were dead, thousands of people weren't located, but after all the dust had settled and cleared, why, and I think this is a real testimony to everyone that was involved, that looks back on this, at least to myself, I have a real testimony of prayer and I know that the Lord had a hand in it after this dam broke. I don't think He had a hand in it breaking, but I think He did have a hand in protecting the people and warning us so that we were able to flee the area. F: Pertaining to the number of deaths, how did it compare with the other disaster areas. There wasn't nearly so heavy of a loss of life, was there? M: This is very minimal. I think another thing, we live in a very good area, predominant LDS, fairly active LDS area, real good people that live here and I think the Lord, He just really helped us out. There's no doubt in my mind.
MORTENSEN -10- There's one other little story that I would like to relate and that's Virginia's brother, Bud, when he came up from California, he'd never been here before, since we moved up here eight years ago from Nevada. This was on a Monday and Virginia was up to St. Anthony and I came down to Salem to look at my father's place, James Max Mortensen out in Salem and we were walking around, my brother Layne and I. We talked with different neighbors and what not and low and behold, who should come walking up the street, why I couldn't believe it, it was Virginia's borther, Bud. And he never had any direction hardly at all. He just drove right to the area. He said he had hardly any problems at all trying to find Virginia in St. Anthony. He says he almost just drove right up to the house where we were staying. So I think that this was kind of unusual, but I think the Lord had a hand in sending help to us to recover our stuff and what not. F: Okay, got anything else that you'd like to report? M: Well, I would like to say after settling with the Bureau, we filed what we felt like was an honest claim, we weren't cut one dime on our claim, and we're very grateful for this. There were people that were cut quite a few dollars and there was some that might have taken advantage, I don't know, but we felt like if we were honest, they were going to be honest with us. F: And that's the way it ended up. Okay, I guess that's everything then.