INIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMIN TETON ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM Ricks College Idaho State Historical Society History Department, Utah State University " TETON DAM DISASTER Rueland Ward Interviewed by Mairy Ann Beck Aline 3, 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
MIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMIN 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,/ GL/ 71/-,/, I, (name, please print) (inter -wer, 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. At-o-c-rt- Inofcriewer's ignature Date
INIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMIN 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 a& the historical and scholarly value of this information, I, / tvc-, 41/4,,o/, 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 ate
MIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMINNIIIIMUNIMIN ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWEE: Rueland Ward INTERVIEWER: Mary Ann Beck DATE: June 3, 1977 TETON DAM DISASTER B: Mr. Ward, where were you born? W: In Felt, Idaho. B: How long have you lived in Rexburg? W: About 20 years. B: Mr. Ward, would you spell you name? W: Rueland Ward. B: How old are you? W: Fifty-nine years. B: Do you have any family? W: Yes. B: How many were living in your home at the time of the flood? W: Four. B: What was your address at the time of the flood? W: West of Rexburg. B: What is your present address? W: Same. B: What do you do for a living? W: Work for Madison School District 321. B:. How long have you lived in this area? W: About 10 years. B: Did you own your own home and farm? W: Yes. B: Did you support or oppose the constru. Lion of the Teton Dam?
-2- W: I supported it. B: Why? W: I thought it would be good for irrigation and be good for water conservation, for power and be good for recreation. B: Did you or any member of your family have a premonition of the Teton disaster? W: No. B: Where were you and your family when the Teton disaster broke? W: Mr wife and mother-in-law were home and my son and I were in Richfied, Idaho. B: What was your first reaction when you heard that the dam had failed? W: That's quite a story. Shall I tell you the whole story? B: Yes. W: My son and I had taken some cattle out to my brother's place in Richfield, Idaho the day before and we stayed all night with him and we were on our way home the next morning and we saw a pickup and car pass us out at Howe, Idaho, and I told my son that those guys were driving like they're crazy. I said, "They must know something that we don't." So I said, "Let's turn on the radio and see if there's anything on." The first thing we heard when we turned the radio on was that the Teton Dam had broken. B: When did you come back to Rexburg? W: You mean? B: After you heard the flood had failed? W: Just as soon as we could get there. We even broke the speed limit. B: Did you have any unusual experiences connected with the flood? W: Well, yes, I think everybody had some unusual experiences connected with the flood. B: Would you like to tell us about it? W: We got home. As we got to the river they told us that we couldn't get through because a ten foot wall of water was ing. But I told them I had a family and some animals and a home there thsp i had to try to save as much as I could.
-3- So we came on through. We were always watching for that ten foot wall of water which didn't hit. We were home fifty minutes before the flood started, or before the flood hit. We were able to load out cattle in a truck but we didn't get them hauled out. They stayed in the truck all the time and we turned our horses and dogs loose and we were able to save every one of our animals. B: So you saw the flood coming? W: You bet. B: Would you like to describe it? W: Well we had gone up on the hill with our trailer and we were watching through binoculars but before that we came back down to see if we could get our neighbor's cattle out and see if I could get the truck loaded with cattel out. We were trying to drive our neighbor's cattle out so we cut the fence to get them away from the water when the flood hit and the water was about four foot deep and the cattle just turned around and ran right back into the water so we had to run for our own safety and stay in fron of the water we'd get to our car to get out so we could get out of the edge of the flood. B: Where did you and your family Stay during the first two or three days after the flood? W: We stayed up on the hill in our trailer house for the first night and then we came home the next morning. B: Did you continue to stay there during the cleanup? W: Yes. B: How soon after the flood were you able to return to your own home?, r W: We returned the next morning but we had four foot of water around the back of the house but we were able to drive up in our driveway 'cause the road was higher and our driveway's the same 'At as the road.
-4- B: What was your reaction when you viewed the destruction of your property? W: I wouldn't even know how to explain that. That's just a hearsick feeling and that was really hard to try to explain. B: What was the damage you suffered as a result of the flood? What was your most cherished item you lost in the flood? W: Well we have two apartments; the one we live in was on top and then the apartment on the bottom we had a young couple living in and it was totally destroyed. We had to tear everything out and then start right from the beginning to rebuild the bottom apartment again. I guess the most valuable thing that we had destroyed probably - would just be our home. B: What did you think about and how did you feel as you watched the flood waters flow through the area? W: Well, we were up on the hill and we watched it with binoculars and when we saw the water and the cattle floating down and the houses, the homes and trailer houses, we though everything'd be gone. B: Did you see any animals swimming? W: You bet. Saw a lot of 'em swimming and some of 'em just floating. B: Did they run out and then come back into the water? W: The only ones we say doing that were the ones that when we tried to get our neighbor's cattle out. B: How did you go about cleaning up your property? W: Well, we had to wait for about a week before we could ever start because the water just kept draining down towards our home se we had about four foot of water out in the back yard for a week or ten days. B: What were some of the problems with which you were confronted, problems that gave you the most frustrations? W: Just not being able to get the water d%.7 so we could start cleaning up. B: Did you receive any help in cleaning your porperty If so, describe it.
W: Yes, we received a lot of help. We had a lot of people come in from Utah and, Boise and Idaho Falls, Mountain Home and all through that area came in to help the whole community and some of those people came to our home. We had one doctor and his wife from Idaho Falls and their two children came and worked all one day at home and then we also had the men that run the trucks for the Bureau--I don't know whether it's the Bureau or Soil Conservation or what it was but they worked for three days on our three acres just trying to haul stuff away. We had saw logs and dead animals; we had about 17 dead cows withing just a block's radius of our house. B: Now did you wuffer any vandalism or other form of lawlessness? W: No, we didn't suffer any of that at ours. We saw some that'd happened though. As people'd go down the canal bank and try to take things out so we put a watch on that abut as long as we could see night and morning and went out and stopped people as we could see them taking things and made sure that they belonged to them before we let them go and we called the Sheriff a time or two and had them check. B: Have you had any uplifting experiences during the cleanup operation? W: Yes. I think the progress, the help from all the members of the LDS Church besides the members of other- faiths was the thing that helped our whole community. And we were able to clean up much faster because we had as high as five to six thousand people come in each day, which was a big boon and I think that's the thing that helped the morale and the cleaning up and everything over the whole community. B:. What kind of government aid did you receive immediately after the flood? W: Well, there was some Red Cross things that we got up to the Ricks College. We ate up there two meals a day and the Church furnished a lot of things and Red Cross furnished a few things for II, se that needed it and I think maybe -5-
-6- one of the main things that was the most important is they had large water trucks hauling water in for drinking water because they were afraid all of our drinking water was contaminated. B: What government agency did you deal with during recovery operations? W: Why, the Small Business Administration. B: Did they treat you fair? W: They have so far. We haven't tried to settle our claim with the BOR yet, but we're satisfied with the Small Business Administration. B: Did you have any dealings with county and state authorities and law enforcement officers during the flood? W: Well, we had people come around and doing checking and they were they quite often. We had a lot of the National Guard people around and checking., Some of the National Guard came and helped us move some of the things out of our basement. B: Did you feel that any who assisted you in recovery operations took advantage of you or the government, especially in getting a lot of money without really earning it? W: I think there was one organization that went around and was supposed to be cleaning homes. We cleaned our own homes and they paid us for doing it, but them we had a paper to sign, we had a paper sent through the mail asked us to sign so another agency could get there payment for cleaning our home. B: Without divulging names, do you know of anyone who filed fraudulent flood claims? W: Not that I could prove. We have a lot of suspicions. B: Do you feel that the flood was divine punishment or a mad-made disaster? W: I think it was a man-made disaster. B: Why? W: Because it failed. I don't think div. - punishment had anything to do with it. B: Do you feel that the dam should be reioilt? If so, should it be rebuilt in the same place?
-7- W: I think the dam should be rebuilt and probably the dam should be built in the same place 'cause that's the most logical place, but it should have more study go into it and be able to be fixed so it would stay next time. I think they've learned a lot on why it failed and would be able to correct that. B: Did HUD help you any in the recovery? W: Yes. They helped. They gave us hot water heater and some of the light switches and helped to replace some of those things that we needed and a pump for our well so we could start pumping our own water. B: How has the Teton disaster changed your life? W: Well, one way it's changed our lives becuase the price of everything has gone so high and the wages have gone so high that it's hard to get anyone to help without paying exhorbitant price and it's hurt the economy of our whole community. B: Now, you teach in Madison 321? W: Yes. B: Would you like to tell us of the conditions? W: Of the schools, you mean? B: Yes. W: Well, we had some of the schoo4 out in the country that weren't hurt at all. And we had some of the schools that were terrible. At the time of the flood I was a counselor in the high school and all of my office and down the lower part of the high school was completely ruined, all the insides. The walls stood, but it tore the doors off of the shop buildings and the water came through and got all of our files wet. We lost all of the files in my office and the other counselor's office they were all ruined. But the principal did get most of the records out that we needed for the graduating classes and for those that had graduated and put them up in a higher part of the building and they weren't hurt until the truck load.,, water came down over the hill and lost control and ran into the buildi:v. and knocked the wall down and spilled
-8- all his water on top of the records up in the part of the building where they were stored. So we did lose part of the records and it's hurt that way because we don't have the files and records on the students who graduated like they would like to have. B: How much will it take to ever get those records back or will you ever? W: They'll never be able to get them all back because they were premanent records and we never, we'll never have the students, we don't have any records of their grades and there's no way to get them back now. B: I see. How soon after the flood did somebody go down and open all the doors in the high school to let the water run out? W: The water took them out. B: The water took them out? W: They didn't have to be opened because the water just tore them out. B: I see. W: But right after the flood, the water did drain out. When we went up there was about four, between four to six inches of mud all over everything and no lights. We had to use flashligits to go back in and see what the damage was and what we could save. Well, that was just the high school. The junior high was probably hurt worse than the high school because it has a basement and it was in a hole. That bottom part of the junior high had to redone. Some of the walls were crumbling a little bit, the foundation was settled, cracks in the walls and it's been quite destructive to the schools right here in town. B:.How long did it take 'em to clean the high school and the junior high? W: Well, they started in June and we weren't able to start school until October, so it took that lon before we could get the schools back in operation. B: Do you have any statistics on how mud, image to the schools?
-9- W: No, I don't have that. The Superintendent has all that information but it's up in the million of dollars. B: Mr. Ward, can you tell us of any other special experiences you encountered in the flood? W: Yah, I can, we can tell some that I think's quite amusing in a way and there're a lot of other people doing it. We would work in the mud and clean up all day and then we would go up to Ricks College and have our evening meal because we weren't able to cook for lack of water. And then our clothes would be muddy and there'd be hundreds of people in there with clothes just as muddy as ours and we would go over to the gym building and go into the showers and it's the way we'd wash our clothes. When we'd get under the shower, we'd just put our clothes down under the shower and then tromp around of them as we were showering and use the soap that we used to work into the clothes with our feet and then we'd hold 'em up and rinse 'em off and that'd be our clean clothes for the next day. So that's the way we washed our clothes for about a week and they were always, always real muddy by every evening because of the mud and things that we were working in to try to clean out our basement and to help other people. We couldn't work in our home for at least a week or better so we went around and tried to help other people as we could until the water got down to where we could work in our own home. Now there were the LDS Church would and the Third Ward, the ward that I belong to was a focal point for distributing where the people would come in by the busload and then they'd branch out from there and go to different places so we helped to distribute those people each morning for about two weeks and I think this is the thing that really helped the whole community and the morale of the people because we had so many people come in and volunteer work that really helped. We had a neighbor, Lorin Kaue,, that I think should really be commended
for the things that he's done because he kept about 50 head of cattle for almost a month trying to find the owners and kpet them 'til somebody, other people could get their corrals back and he fed 'em his own hay and he didn't, wouldn't take a thing for it so he must've fed up at least 35 or 40 tons of his own hay that he just more or less just donated to people. I know he kept my cows there for two months 'til I got my corrals back where I could keep my cattle at home. He wouldn't take a thing for the feed but we did try to help him as much as we could to pay for it a little bit but we didn't anywhere near pay for it what he had done for us. So I think there's a lot of cases where the neighbors and things should really be commended for the way their help and unselfishness. I think the LDS Church should be really commended for the way that they have taken care of things and the organization that they had in being able to help the people. The Red Cross left after the first week or two because they said the LDS Church was doing everything that they could do so they pulled out. They had other places they could go where they thought they were needed most. B: What do think about this AppreCiation Day that's coming up this weekend? W: I think it's really good. I hope we have a lot of people here, but I am kind of disappointed in our merchants or someone because they're getting things donated and then they're gonna charge for them, their sandwiches and that. This kinda disappointed me to think that we're having this Appreciation Day and the merchants are using it as a way to upbuild their business by having big sales. I think they should open their stores and let people come in and see, but I don't think they should entice 'em to come in and buy things by putting on big sales and things like that. I think it's nice to show them how they have rebuilt their stores and how they fixed them up, but this promoting big sales and advertising ah, it it and it sound like it's a gimmick to me to make money in Rexburg off people that hleped us before, which I don't like. Maybe I've got the wrong viewpoint of it but it doesn't seem good to me. -10-
B: During the flood and right after it was there different kinds of odors and this in the air? W: There still are. B: Wbuld you like to explain? W: There was a lot of stale water. I think we had a lot of pesticides and things that was in the water because trees are dying now; I've got several of my fruit trees that only half of 'em are coming out in leaf and the other half aren't and I don't know what the reason is. The only thing I can find out from people I ask is they say maybe pesticides got up on part of the tree and didn't get on the other. But there's an odor still an odor that when the dirt gets damp or places where you couldn't clean it out. It's hard to tell or explain what kind the odor was. Some of the main odors that we had to begin with were dead cows and dead pigs, we got those cleaned up but that was something that dissipated, that odor. But you can still smell it in the house and in places where you didn't get all the mud out. THere's a distinct odor to that mud and slough. Of course, I think we got part of the sewer settling pond and a lot of the barnyard4 and things in our house. We're sure we did that because I got part of my own corrals which would add to that smell. B: Do you think there was a lotta sickness this past winter because of that here in Rexburg? W: Well, we had a lot of people blame it onto that but I'm not sure. I don't know how it could be. There's a lot of respiratory diseases andthings that seemed like more than we've had other years. But whether we can blame it onto the flood I'm not sure. B: Do you know anything about the absenteeism in the school district? W: Well, we had a lot of absenteeism but that's another thing. I don't know whether we can count that on the floo.. A lot of our absenteeism was parent taking children out or they let them skiing or other activities a little
-12- bit. We had a lot of sickness that may be contributed to the flood. I think we had an unusual amount of sickness in the school district which has cut down several hundred thousand dollars on our average daily attendance or the money that we get from the state because of that which is hurting our whole school district for next year. B: I see. Do you think the BOR has treated the school district or haven't they got their claim in yet? W: No, they have got some of it. I think it's been quite a hassle, but I think they have come out pretty good. I think they've been quite generous with 'em becuase, of course that was another government deal kind of go along with it. They've had some help from the state and other officials on this so I think the school has come out better than some of the individuals. B: Do you think President Mark Ricks did a fabulous job? W: Oh, he did a tremendous job. B: Would you like to elaborate? W: I think his leadership and ability to organize and get things going was one of the big things that helped ug and I think he could, should really be recognized or commended for that and I think that's maybe the reason he got the new position that he got as Regional Representative. That probably had something to do with it, because they knew what a good man he was. But he's a good man and we have a log of good men though, that helped. He couldn'ta done it alone if it hadn'ta been for the hlep of the Bishops and the other people in the wards and other organizations that, Relief Society and the Priesthood members. And then we can't discount the other faiths that came in either. We had, what it the group from back east? B: The ;IDS? W: That came in. I can't think what theft dame is now, but they really helped. B: Mennonites?
-13- W: Yeah, Mennonites, yes. They did a tremendous job. B: They're still here. W: They're still here now? I hadn't seen any of 'em lately, but I think they really oughta be commended for the work that they're doing. And then there was other faiths too that really helped. W: Was Third Ward well organized? B: I think every ward was well organized. President Ricks was part of that, seeing that all the wards were organized and all the Bishops, they had their whole organization of each stake, so I, of course, I'd say it was well organized. W: Thank you Mr. Ward. This tape will be placed in the library at Ricks College and at Utah State University and for the Idaho Historical Society for future use.