is August 22, 1976, and my name is David McComb.
Well, basically what I want to record is what happened to you. And
I guess your story starts probably Saturday night when it started raining. R1: Yes:
M: Was that storm when it came in anything different from what you'd experi-enced before or was it just another rainstorm?
R1: We really didn't think anything about it.
R2: It was just . . . ah . . . we were having a barbecue down by the river with his parents. And about around 6:00 it started raining off and on.
M: Yes.
R2: And so we moved up to the house, and it would stop for a little while and then start raining again. And I think about . . . oh . . . it was after 7:00 that it just iust didn't ouit.
M: And it keot on aoina for what-- the rest of the niqht? R2: Yes.
R1: Until about 1:00 mavbe?
M: Yes. When did vou realize that the river was risinq?
Rl: It was really kind of funny. We had a bunch of people here. We had our good friends here and their kids and another good friend. We were all just sitting around having a good time, and it was raining real hard, and it was real exciting. Just looked over here by the house and it was really running.
R2: It's a dry creek. M: Oh, yes.
R1: When we bought the property, it ran for like a couple of months and it just kind of trickled, and it was really nice. But it really roared that night,
and it was real interestinq.
R2: It had auite a bit of water in it. M: That worried vou a little bit, then?
Rl: No.
R2: We didn't really think that much about it.
Rl: Wasn't concerned at all. You know . . . uh . . . it was liqhtninq outside. We were qoinq to qo outside. We were oriqinally qoinq to qo to Greelev to meet my cousin there, but the driveway qat real muddy, and we were afraid
to back down and then vou know it was liqhtninq so bad we .iust decided to hold off. But we knew the river was cominq up you know, and we wanted to qo look at it but vou know it was liqhtninq real bad. It was a real bad electric storm. We didn't even want to qo out.
M: So you stayed here.
Rl: Yes. And then, I don't know--about what--9:15 we went to bed? Everybody just went to bed. And we were in bed, and then we heard someone come in. It was the neighbors that had a house down there. They said 110ur house is
going to wash away any time.11 If they could stay here, you know.
M: So they came up the hi 11.
Rl: They came up here and walked in here. They, as a matter of fact, just got out in the nick of time. They didn't have time to put their shoes on. M: Is that right? From what r•ve seen that house down there looked like the
whole lower floor was washed. But something was still left on it. Rl: Yes, there was this much water on the upper floor.
M: What, 3-1/2 feet?
Rl: About two feet. You can go inside that house, and you can see the ring all the way around the inside of it. And the whole floor sank because it was so muddy.
M: Is this the upper floor, you say? Rl: Yes, the upper floor.
M: So it came all the way through the first floor . . . that high . . . and . . . . Rl: Probably about 15 feet.
M:
My word. Did the house move off its foundations?Rl: The foundation is out from underneath it pretty much, you know, Like this one wall is still standing because there was a lot of backfill by it. But the whole southwest wall is out from the back, just pushed through with s i 1t and stuff.
M: My god! So they spent the night with you? Rl: Yes.
M: The next morning, I suppose, you all got up and went down to look at things. Rl: Well, when they came up here, everybody got back up again because we realized
that the river must be really getting high. M: Oh, you mean when those folks came in.
R2: Yes. And so we looked out. Every time the lightning flashed, we could look out the window and see the river and saw that it was--where you parked your truck on the side of our hill--it was just about two feet below that to the .
Rl: About four feet.
R2: other side of the mountains. M: You mean the riverwas that high?
Rl: ·Yes. You can go see where it kind of washed up there. M: My word ..
Rl: Look up the road and see these flashy things sitting out there in the win-dow . . . it was those two big culverts that were up the road. They were about ten feet
in
diameter.M: Yes. They•re down there now~
Rl: They cut this one in half and used them someplace else, R2: They're using parts of it to put back in the road. Rl: They were both out there, both of them.
M: Oh, wow! So the river was up and what did you do? Just stay here all night? Rl: Yes.
M: I assume your lights and telephone and everything were gone. Rl: Yes, we lost our telephone.
R2: Yes, we lost our telephone just about . . . a little after 9:00, And the electricity went out at a quarter to ten, the clock said,
M: Okay. I assume you run the toilets and stuff off an electric pump of some kind.
Rl: Yes, but you know we have a . . . we didn't use the toilet except for when we had to. And we had that water running out there so whenever we needed to flush, we•d just take a bucket and put it in top of the toilet and flush it.
M:
Yes. So that was no biq deal.Rl: We could have even lived up here for a week and a half, ma.vbe two. R2: We had our 55 gallons of water.
Rl : Yes, our hot water tank was full of water, and it's 55 gallons and our
pressure tank for our pump is 40·gallons. We were prepared to stay for quite a while if we had to. We had plenty of food here.
M: You got propane? Rl: No.
M:
How do you cook? Rl: Fire.R2: Electricity.
M: But you can cook with that? Rl: Could have cooked with a fire.
M:
Sure. Okay. On Sunday, then, when you came out, you'd go down the hill,I
assume, to see what had happened? R2: Yes.
Rl: No. We went down Saturday night, Tim and I to this one . . . .
M:
Just to see the river?Rl: No. We stayed down there for probably about an hour. M: Oh, did you?
Rl: Yes. And walked up and down, and there was . • . a thing that was real spooky . . . it was a car that was sitting over there· on the other side of the river that had its flashers on. And we were a bit concerned so we were going to try to figure out a way to get across but then thought it was just foolish. There was no way to do it. But, apparently, the next morning we went up the river and we talked to one of the guys, and he said the girl
in that car had just got out and ran up the hill. So she was okay. M: What happened to the car?
Rl: Demolished.
M: It 5I ipped down the river someplace?
Rl: I don't know. It was up there and the water just . I think, you know everybody talks about these waves of water, you know, and I can never quite picture it, but you know when you see what it did, you can imagine.
Rl: A friend of mine was down, you know where that Indian village is? M: Yes.
Rl: He was right there, and he said that the water came up about 15 feet in two minutes. While he was standing there.
M: Whew! That's a long way, isn't it?
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Rl: Yes. Nothinq like this vou know.
M: Since vou were down there that niaht. what did it sound like?
Rl: I don't know. It was noisv. A lot of boulders were washina down. Beatinq aqainst other boulders. And every once in a awhile a propane tank would come floating down.
M:
Could you smell the aas?Rl: Oh. ves. the aas~was real bad.
M:
Yes. Newspapers said some of those propane tanks exploded. That's hard to believe.Rl: It's possible, I know. People say there were all kinds of weird things that happened up here. The whole thing was just so . freak.
R2: We still didn't realize, you know, the extent of it. Rl: No.
R2: Really. A helicopter picked us up the next day.
Rl: We had the car radio on, you know, and the first thing, you know, we sat out that night and listened to the radio a little bit in the car and then the next morning the first thing we brought it up here and took the car battery out of the car and listened to it and then--that was just bizarre, you know, everybody was saying this and this and half the stuff wasn•t true
and half the stuff they didn't know about. You could turn to any different station and get any different story just about.
M: So what did you do? Just sit tight, then?
Rl: We walked around. Got up and hiked around the·hill, checked this house down there at the bottom of the hill.
M: Were they all right?
Rl: Yes, they weren•t up here. They just got a little bit of water in their I
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basement. We went to all the neighbors down there. They lived in the
house down there, and they evacuated to the trailer up the hill. Just what I1d normally do, you know? (laughs)
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M: Yes. So your neighbors were essentially okay. Rl: Everybody was okay.
M: All right. Then, sometime Sunday, the rescue people started coming in. R2: Yes, in the morning, early morning, there was helicopters flying in.
Rl: Yes, at daylight there was helicopters flying back and forth--all kinds of them. Most of them, I think, just kind of scouting out the area.
M: Did any of them stop to talk to you? Rl: No, they came down about what?
R2: Three o'clock. Rl: Three o•clock.
R2: They stopped, and we went out and told them were all okay and they could go ahead and pick up people that were stranded or injured. And they said that they had got all the injured, and they were evacuating the whole Can-yon.
M: So they pulled you out? R2: Yes.
M: But there really wasn•t any need in your case, was there? Rl: Well, no.
R2: We couldn•t get out any other way because the river was so high. M: But you didn•t need to get out either, of course.
R2: No, we didn't.
Rl: Two of my friends that stayed here hiked out that morning--they left and hiked up all the way past us. Up over the top of us.
M:
Yes, in back of you. Well, okay, they take you out by helicopter. What did (they do? Pick you up out here someplace? Rl: We parked the car
R2: We parked the car M: Okay. (laugh).
R2: A little one pi_cked us up here and took us to the fish hatchery and dropped us off there where they were grouping people and then a big Army one took us from there to Loveland.
M: One of those big Chinooks? Rl: Yes.
M: So then you got into Loveland, and I guess you go to the high school. Rl: Yes. Signed in and went home to my parents' house--to Gloria's parents'
house.
M: Yes. What did you do--spend a couple of days there then? Rl: First night.
R2: We're still living there. We've only been up here on weekends. M: Oh, really?
R2: Yes, we're living . . . we rented an apartment. We slept at my parents' house one night and then some other people that were up here with us said--he used to live up tsaid--he road said--here--stayed at Gloria's parents'. We kind of divided everybody up amongst the in-laws for one night, and then we got an apartment the next day.
M: Okay. Then you came back here. What? The next week or something? Rl: I came back Tuesday--hiked in from Estes Park. They wouldn't let us go
through Glen Haven. So we packed in from Estes Park.
M: That's strange. Why wouldn't they let you go through Glen Haven?
Rl: Because they were working on the road, and they didn't want anybody in the
area. ,,
Rl: Tuesday afternoon. Same day.
M:
Fantastic. Telephone?Rl: I don't know. I guess at sundown. R2: We don't have it.
Rl: We don't have it. We don't get the service up here on telephone, you know. They charge a high minimum anyway. Like $15.
R2: Until we move back.
M:
So there's no reason to pay it then. Rl: Everything up here is real expensive.M: Yes. I'll bet. But essentially you're back in operation here then. Aren't you?
Rl: Oh, yes.
M:
You got roads through and Rl: Come up every weekend.:M:
Okay. One other kind of qeneral question. In disasters, residents and other people often have trouble with sightseers and people with curiosity, potential looters. Is this of any concern to you?R2: Yes,
Rl: We were worried about it, you know, but there's not much you can do about it.
M:
Does the.
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. ?R2: Caught a lot of looters. Rl: I guess they caught some.
M:
Yes. Does the roadblock, you think, help you any?Rl: No. I've come up several times. The guy was standing there and he didn't even stop my car. I don't know if it was that he recognized me but it was the same guy when we came in yesterday, and he checked me that time. So I think a lot of the time they just get to talking and forget about checking
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people and so forth.
I don't think the security is tight enough because I see a lot of people up here that just don't belong here, you know. A lot of people that have lied to get their pass, you know, just so they could brinq their .ieep friends up here and cruise around and check it all out and look for knick knacks and
wha~h~ve
you. I think they should just close the area off and that's it.You know, like the pass they gave you, it's just sort of a handwritten pass on a Sheriff's Department business card, you know. So if they would have had any sense about it and wanted to control it a little better, they should have put your driver's license number on it, you know, and made you present a picture I.D. to verify that this is really you, you know, and not some card that you found or borrowed from somebody else or, you know.
M: Yes. So the security really isn't tight enough? Rl: I don't think it is. I don't think it is at all.
M: Okay. What do you--do you have any ideas or comments about what's going to happen to this area? Is it all going to rebuild or . ?
Rl: They don't know. How could we know? They don't know. They don't even know if they're going to put U.S. 34 back there, I guess, from what I understand. They're still debatinq.
M: Yes. And the folks that live down there on the river. What are they qoinq to do?
Rl: Oh, we used to live down in Drake. R2: They were planninq on . .
Rl: Before we moved up here.
R2: the peop 1 e that 1 i ved down here, they were p l ann i nq on sell i nq. They
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were just qettinq it ready to sell. M: Oh, my.
R2: So, they'll probably just qet rid of it.
Rl: He's real happy, you know. The quv's happy evervbodv is okav. vou know, and everybody UP here is .iust basically haPPY. You know. we're not real bummed out about the situation. I don't know of anvbodv that's real bummed out about the situation. It's .iust somethinq that happens. There's no sense beinq bummed out about it because there was nothinq vou could do about it in the beoinninq. So. whv be depressed? You know. we're haPPY that we're all okav.
M: Of course. that quv dovm there's probably lost his house. Rl: Yes, I'm sure he has.
M: If he's like everybody else, he didn't have any flood insurance.
Rl: Yes. The Governor will pay for it. I really feel that way. You know what? If there's a disaster somewhere else, like in India, what have you, i f they have a natural disaster, and people are killed and homes are destroyed, we're the first ones that are going_ to come in there, and we give them all kinds of federal funding, you know, to help them out of their problem.
M: Right~
Rl: And Rapid City didn't have any real assistance. SBA at what--4 and some
percent at that time which is now 6-5/8 percent. By the time you've paid all the little fees and everything you're up to 8 percent. I mean, what's the point?
R2: Yes. We used to live in Drake before we moved. into this house, We rented a house in Drake. And, most of the Drake community were retired people,
Practically a 11 of Drake was wiped out. All the homes and they were a 11 living on Social Security,and.they can'~ go out and start over again, Pay
12 for a loan.
M: Right.
Rl: Compensation for the elderly is bad enough for what it is, let alone take everything that they own that they have any equity in. They've worked all their lives to give their children some time.
Rapid City had the same thing. They didn't do anything about it. I
really feel that somebody this time should do something about it and get a new law on the books in the event of a disaster of such magnitude. You know, that the qovernment waul d compensate for that. I really feel, you know, not. you know, by .iust helpinq a little bit and borrowinq you more money.
But by actually, you know, helping you out of a jam and giving you what you lost and what you paid for. I'm not saying, you know, pay every-body their market value for what they lost but what they had invested, that's what they should get. This is for disasters to come, you know.
The next disaster, you know, face it, you know, som~place,
they're. going to have an earthquake in California, whateyer, you know. Something's going to happen. Something happens every year. And a 11 those
people are going to be in the same situation we're in. Nobody's going to do anything about it .again, and it's going to go on and on and on.
M:
Have you been down to Drake? Rl: Yes.R2: Yes.
M: What do the people think down there. They going to try to rebuild it? · Rl: No.
R2: A lot of them don't know. It's just g-orie.
A 1 ot of the_ ground that they had built on is gone.
M:
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Rl: See, once again, nobody knows, like are they going to let you build by the river.
R2: Nobody can afford to come back and build it there.
M: Yes. So they're. just kind of waiting to see what's going to happen. Okay. I've come to the end of my questions for you. Do you have any comments about this experience or anything? Anything you want to add?
Rl: No.
