I just got Don Barnett’s book "Thorns and Roses" and I could not stop reading it.  It is a first-hand account of his years as mayor of Rapid City from 1971-1975.  WOW, what a great book… there was so much I didn’t know, especially about the water treatment plant and what it took to get it working.  This behind the scenes accounting of the flood gave me be a better understanding of what I didn’t have to go through and what it took to recover. This is a must read book!
(Check out the post below for information on where to order your copy.)
Mary Beth Johnson (Howe)

Don Barnett served as mayor of Rapid City from 1971 to 1975 when disaster and civil unrest threatened to tear the city apart. With his riveting insider’s view, Barnett tells the story of the flood of 1972, which claimed the lives of 238 people and displaced more than a thousand families. Months later, tensions between the Native and non-Native communities in western South Dakota exploded as the American Indian Movement protested injustice and racism in the city. Thorns & Roses is a must read for anyone current and former residents of Rapid City and others interested in this important chapter in American History. 

If you are interested in the book, go to his book website and place an order, I just ordered two. 
(Mary Beth Johnson)

Photo:  SD Army National Guard Master Sergeant Harmon Lee Rose, father of Rose Klix, used a bulldozer to help clean up Storybook Island.

     I’m glad I saved the above photograph of my father helping to clean up Storybook Island. It has always been a beloved children’s park. I believe this picture also appeared in the Rapid City Journal.
    I’ve been reading my classmates’ experiences and I feel very blessed that my family survived the devastating flood. I read an interesting report online. I just wanted to know what really happened fifty years ago to cause the damage. This link explained how the event built to a climax of a freak storm and why the Canyon Lake dam didn’t hold.. https://damfailures.org/case-study/canyon-lake-dam-south-dakota-1972/
    This week I read about some of the heroics in my classmates’ stories. My personal story is thankfully not as dramatic as so many more people reported, but here are my recollections.
    I heard the storm on the roof at my parents’ Columbus Street house. I don’t remember if it hailed in Rapid. But I do remember the rain or hail pounded late at night on the roof. But I didn’t know then that our whole community was negatively changed.
    My then husband, I, our two babies, and my step-children were all temporarily camping out with my parents while we renovated an old house we’d bought. My brother Jim was serving in the Navy during the Viet Nam conflict. We were a bit crowded in the story and a half colonial style house, two upstairs bedrooms, one bathroom, a den, dining room and my brother’s bedroom in the basement. Fortunately, we were not directly in the flooding area but approximately five blocks away.
    My Dad, Harmon Lee Rose, was a career National Guardsman who was in summer training in Texas. I’m glad we were with Mom through the beginning of this terror.
    My husband, Chuck Anderson worked for the Rapid City Water Department. Late that night he received a call to report to work. We were used to him responding to a waterline break. He told me that he drove as far as West Main Street to turn into the area that locals call ‘the Gap.’ It was between town hills and where the two one-way streets, St. Joe and Main, meet around Halley Park - which quickly become an island. Chuck was amazed at this huge ‘water main break.’ He saw overturned cars floating down the street and even saw a propane tank on fire floating on the water. He said he managed to navigate on the sidewalks to where he needed to report on Mountain View Road. They were a little uphill from the high water. They assigned him the task of gaining entrance into flooded houses and turn off the water. Before he crawled inside one house he said he was told to watch out for some named residents. They hadn’t been located yet.
    Dad tried several times to call Mom. While still in Texas he’d heard the news of the horrific flood in his hometown. Finally, he got through the dicey phone lines. Mom relaxed knowing he was allowed to come home. Dad had responded many times to SD state disasters with his role in the SD National Guard. Though, usually, it was plowing piled up snow from huge blizzard drifts. This time it was from the aftermath of a wall of water.
    In his typical fashion, Dad almost immediately reported to the National Guard camp. One of his assignments was to help clean up Storybook Island. The photograph I attached shows him operating a bulldozer to help clear the rubble.
    We were safely five blocks away from the flooded areas. My step-children’s mother was panic-stricken when she couldn’t reach us right away but so happy when Mom said they were safe. She couldn’t come up from Hot Springs right away to collect them from their visit.
    One week later, the air raid sirens started blasting. We were used to their testing every noon. This was different. We were being warned of another possible storm approaching. I almost panicked. I soon filled up their claw-footed bathtub in case the water was shut off again. After all I had two boys in cloth diapers. I would need water to rinse them out in the sink. I also needed water to prepare baby formula. Thankfully, my precaution was unnecessary.
    Two years earlier I had worked as a federal census worker collecting the 1970 census reports. I was directed to stop at each house in my area. Much of my canvasing became the flood zone area. Plus every fifth house I was required to ask additional census questions. It still haunts me that many of those people I interviewed were either killed in the flood or lost their homes and personal property.

    Reports showed statistics of 238 people lost their lives and over 3,000 were injured, plus $165 million in damage. It still is mind-boggling to me.
    After this disaster the wise city leaders decided there should be a flood zone established where no homes could be built close to Rapid Creek. That way people wouldn’t die in their sleep in a devastating rainstorm which my maternal grandfather called a 100-year flood. When I was about five years old we  lived on New York Street not far from Rapid Creek. I looked for that orange stucco house. It disappeared after the flood.
    The Red Cross had a presence for the disaster. Rumors stated they were watched riding around in some luxury cars looking at the damage. What all they actually did, I don’t know. Perhaps they helped with disaster relief of which I wasn’t aware.
    I remember going to the old Civic Auditorium downtown and standing in line for shots – probably Tetanus, Hepatitis A, Typhoid, and/or Cholera They were delivered in those air gun sort of instruments which hurt more than a regular needle. I guess that was so they could deliver this preventive medicine to the town population faster. Later I picked up some items for my children from piles of donated clothing and Pampers. Procter & Gamble had started selling  Pampers in  1970.  I sometimes supplemented the cloth diapers but we had a tight budget. Disposable diapers were a luxury. Probably furnishings and supplies were also given away in the same building.
    My husband bought a small house with knotty pine throughout that he planned on moving to our property. I remember he said he paid $50 for it. We shoveled out the dried up mud about 6 inches deep from the wooden floor. But we couldn’t afford to move it to our property. Plus there were so many people moving their homes from the flooded areas. Supply and demand pushed the prices up. Also the expected times for getting the projects done had a long waiting list. So he resold the house.
    During the dreary and cloudy months I didn’t feel like we really had a summer in 1972. I’m sure the moods were very solemn especially with so many citizens mourning loss of life and property.
    After miraculous rescues the town faced mountainous clean-up projectss. Clean-up and mourning for lost lives was a long-lasting terror. I know there were many, many people, both salaried employees as well as volunteers, involved in putting Rapid City back together again over the next few years. I’m very happy that my hometown did not wash away but has continued to build for the future.
(Rose Klix)

In Aug 1971 I came home from Vietnam. I made it! Many of the young men I was with did not. I thought I would settle down to some peace and quiet??? In November of 72, I married my wife Nola and we rented a house on New York Street just on the North side of Rapid Creek. On June 1, I joined the Rapid City Fire Department and that was the beginning of a 27 year career.

Then the flood, so much for peace and quiet! We recieved word to evacuate so we piled what few belongings we had, jumped in the 65 Impala SS and I drove my young wife out to my parents home in Rapid Valley. I then headed back to town to join the fire crews. By that time water was rising and I could not get down Omaha past East Boulevard so I had to turn up to Main Street to get down to the old main fire station.

I won’t describe everything I experienced but will try to describe one of the early scenes. Myself and another firefighter were in chest high water on the south side of Omaha Street at West Boulevard and we could not go any further. It was dark! The water was fast and deep going down Omaha Steet. There was a big fire to my left in the gap and propane tanks from the trailer court were floating by and hissing. Occassionally we could hear a scream from the trees on the other side, but there was nothing we could do. There was also another fire on the north side of East Boulevard and Omaha street.

A couple days later I received a little personal time to check on things. There was not a lot of communcation available to the community, but word was out that four firemen were crossing Canyon Lake bridge when it collapsed.  When I got to where our rental home had been it was gone. I then walked east a couple blocks and found my 55 Chevy with another car on top of it. Then I noticed the old house was two blocks further east and tipped up against a tree on the opposite side of the road. It was then I saw my wife for the first time in a few days, we had had no contact until then. When we saw each other we ran down the middle of the street and hugged! Safe! Everything else was not important.

I can't say the rest of my life has been uneventful but I am still here. We have been married over 50 years now and have 4 grandchildren. God is Good!  
(Lynn Culver)

..........Next Thursday marks the 50th anniversary of the flood, as in, The Flood: June 9th, 1972, when I was just eleven years old.  I feel like I should return to Rapid City to mark the occasion and be part of whatever commemoration the city might have planned.  I’m sorry that I can’t do that and won’t be there. I sometimes wonder if anyone out there has a more harrowing story about that night, about surviving that monstrous beast, than mine.  I highly doubt it, mainly because if you were in any more peril than I was, you would be dead.  And then I remember meeting my friend (and fellow Canyon Lake Bolt) Matt Vanderbeak the next morning. It turns out a rescue team brought Matt to the same house that took in Dad and me after we were rescued. I was startled when he walked out of the room where he had been sleeping and joined us for breakfast. And even more startled to see, when he pulled up his shirt, how he had been cut to ribbons during whatever terrifying experience he’d been through.  I spent much of the night treading water inside our house. He started out the night, together with his family, trying to escape the flood in their boat.  Until it capsized and he spent God knows how long swimming for his life in the open water, in the very cold water, filled with so much hazardous debris that none of his family members survived.

............We lost our house and I lost my sweet dog, Tammy. He lost his entire family.  No comparison.  
             Five decades later I remember the stories from that night, of course, if only because I’ve told them so many times. In this way, the flood is not so different from the Gospels, and the story of Jesus, entirely dependent in its early years on multiple re-tellings in order for the details not to be forgotten.
            But do I still have memories of the actual experience I had that night?
            Yes. Yes, I do.
            I first remember Dad calling my name, urging me to get out of bed. I remember hopping out of my bed, unsure what was going on, and stepping foot into water up to my ankles.  (How I was not absolutely panic-stricken about Tammy at this point is a question for which I do not have an answer.)
            I remember feeling the house move under my soaked feet and thinking some eleven-year-old version of, “Uh oh.”
            I remember how our now-moving house tore off the corner of our neighbor’s house as we began our nightmare trek downstream.  
            I remember jumping up on the sofa at Dad’s instance to get out of the water and so keep from being electrocuted when the house plowed through all the high-voltage electrical wires that ran behind our home and served the entire neighborhood.  
            And I remember how the sparks flew from the ends of those wires when the house did tear through them, like so many writhing, demonic snakes, spitting out blue venom.  (I’m now thinking this is perhaps the moment when Tammy died—sweet Tammy, whom I would never see again.)  
            I remember how our house ground to a halt when it maybe hit just a bit of high ground somewhere in Sioux Park and thinking, Whew, that was intense but we made it.
            I remember seeing through our front window, in successive lightning flashes, an ominous wall of water steadily approaching, like the worst time-lapse photograph of all time.  
             I remember taking shelter with Dad behind the wall that separated the living room and kitchen, and waiting for the water to hit.  About as effective as taking shelter from an approaching train behind a sheet of plastic.
            I remember how all hell broke loose when the water finally hit, how it smashed the front of the house to smithereens, and how I instantly found myself submerged in utter chaos, in the middle of a pitch-dark, underwater tornado.  
            I remember being under water for a while, trying to find the surface.  I remember finding the surface and coming up alone, before Dad did.  
            I remember hearing his voice, calling for me when he, too, finally surfaced. I remember seeing the glow of his wrist watch in the darkness and I remember following that glow toward my salvation, like the magi followed that famous star.  
            I remembering being very cold and, so, also being very happy when the fridge bumped into me and I had something I could climb onto to get out of the frigid water.
            I remember hearing a very loud crack and I remember how the ceiling of what must have been the kitchen collapsed on me, squishing me flat, pinning my head and my right arm against the fridge, like being suddenly stuck in a pitch dark cave with a very low ceiling, or like an animal getting caught in a trap from which there was no escape.
            And all I remember from this point on is how my dad shifted into hero mode, like he was back in World War II, fighting Nazis, only now he was fighting to save my life, and his.
            How he somehow wedged the ceiling up enough or the fridge down enough that I could tear myself out of that menacing trap that held me tight.  
            How he somehow guided us through the absolute darkness, both of us swimming in water over our heads, up into the dry warmth of the attic, only to insist that we leave that cozy sanctuary when the house got caught up in some trees, rightly understanding that the terrible force of the roaring water would likely finish tearing our now-trapped house to pieces.
            And how he somehow torn a hole in the roof, and got us out up and out of the attic, onto the roof, and from there into the branches of one of the trees that now held the house in place.  I remember being astonished to discover that Mrs. Deiter, our close neighbor who lost several family members — and maybe all of them — was perched in a nearby tree.  
            I remember seeing the searchlight of a rescue boat, out on the water looking for bodies in the water (alive or dead), looking for people hung up in trees (alive or dead), or stranded on the roofs of their houses.  
            Seeing that light, I remember thinking, We’re going to make it.  We’re going to live.
            Looking back, I realize what I feel most now is sorrow that my dad is no longer with us so that I might thank him even just one more time for fighting like a genuine war hero to save my life.  
            Because of all the memories I have from that night, that’s the thing I remember the most.
(written by Rusty Runholt’s Brother Steve)

Here’s my flood story. Although I wasn’t there for the initial event, it proved to be a pivotal point of all of our lives and changed us all forever.

June of ’72 found me floating around in the balmy waters off the coast of Vietnam aboard the aircraft carrier USS Midway. One night as I reported for work, my supervisor handed me a note that the chaplain wished to see me. Those meetings were not usually an occasion where one would receive good news. Approaching his cabin I was filled with dreaded anticipation that perhaps a family member had died but when I stepped into his quarters he handed me a telegram sent via the Red Cross. In my mother’s words I got the news: “Rapid City is flooded. The house is gone, Everyone is alive. Can you come home? We need you”. With a quivering lower lip I looked up to see the chaplain’s kind face. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “would you like to go home, son”? “Yes sir, yes sir” I said in a breaking voice. He had already cleared it with my commanding officer and I would be off in the next transport plane to leave the ship. The following day was a rare day off aboard the carrier. No flight operations were scheduled so my departure would be delayed a day. I knew that fellow Cobbler, Kevin Krumvieda, a classmate and very good friend, was aboard the USS Hanson, the destroyer that was escorting us, and was only a mile or two from Midway. I sent him a message and he was able to jump on a helo that was heading our way and we spent the day together then the following day I was able to fly off, first to DaNang then a hop to Saigon where I was able to get aboard a plane carrying soldiers home after their long one year tour in the war zone.

I arrived in Rapid on June 13th. A taxi ride from the airport brought me to the site where my parents home had been, on Sheridan Lake Road across the street from Storybook Island. My mother was right, the house was gone. They had moved to that house a couple years prior following the sale of their motel, The Lake Park, that sat on the shore of Canyon Lake where the Chop House now sits. I did some inquiring with the neighbors who informed me that I could probably find my family at Meadowbrook Elementary where the Red Cross had set up a disaster shelter/center. Sure enough, I was able to connect with them there. Then I heard their story.

The house, with my father Clarence, and 10 year old brother Steve, inside it, had floated away with the rising flood water following the collapse of the earthen dam that held back Canyon Lake. The house came to rest a several hundred yards down stream and the initial assessment was that they were going to be okay. The water was receding. Yes there certainly was damage but it could be worse. And then, suddenly, it was worse, a lot worse. When the the Chapel Lane bridge gave way, the tremendous amount of water that had been backed up by the bride produced the dreaded wall of water. It hit the house and it was again afloat, filling up with water to the point where my brother was at one point floating on top of the refrigerator which gave him something to hold onto. The two were separated at one point and the only way to get together in the pitch black was the luminous dial of my father’s watch. At one point my brother was pinned up against the ceiling as something wedged up under the refrigerator. My father was able to find some flotsam and pry the fridge away and ultimately freed Steve. After what seemed like an eternity, the house finally came to rest again, it got wedged into some trees behind Bennett Clarkson hospital. My father was able to bust a hole in the ceiling and get them up and out of the water. They were able to crawl across the rafters and out through one end of the house that had been torn off, then climb up on the roof where they awaited a rescue boat that came by and took them aboard and to safety. Steve and my father were taken to a doctor’s home where they were able to spend the remainder of the night. Fortunately, my mother wasn’t home at the time of the flood, She had gone back to eastern SD to sing for a cousin’s wedding. She couldn’t swim a stroke and would surely had drown.

My parents were able to move into one of a small group of houses they had recently purchased which were beside Canyon Lake Elementary. I was able to work with the cleanup and salvage of whatever was salvageable from the destroyed structure prior to it being demolished and hauled away. Ultimately I was able to talk my way out of the Navy because I was scheduled for discharge in September and a sympathetic Chief Petty Officer took pity on me and mustered me out following the one month I had spent in the cleanup effort.

Our family survived and my folks were forced to go back into business and regain their financial security. They purchased a business in Belle Fourche where they lived for about 10 years before returning to Rapid where they finally retired. They always said how thankful they were to have lived in such a caring community and how they so appreciated the care of strangers.
(Rusty Runholt)

There are several sources of our flood history on the internet, oral and written...
Photo above is just one of the many sources of information!
Google to read or heard more stories!

I wasn’t in Rapid, I just started a summer nursing program working with Migrants & Rural Poor in the San Louis Valley in Colorado.  I got a phone call from my mom where I was staying in Colorado, and she told me that our family members were all okay.  I immediately turned on the TV, and was blown away by the pictures of the damage.  I was so glad my family was okay, my brother spent the night in our house, which right below the dam that broke, my folks were across town playing bridge and my sister was working up in Keystone. So lucky our house by the creek and next to a bridge did not get washed away!
Diana Linda Simon (Slingsby)

Part I...
The summer of 1972 was full of promise for me.  I had worked at the Baken Park Piggly Wiggly since I was a junior in high school and because my college experience didn’t work out, I thought my future was to manage a grocery store for the Nash Finch Company.  I started my training June 5 at the Belle Fourche Piggly Wiggly store.   As my first week was ending, Friday June 9 brought rain to the Belle Fourche area mid-afternoon.   Heavy and steady rain.  I headed home at 5 pm in my 1965 International Scout.  Along the way it was raining so hard my windshield wipers couldn’t keep up.  I stopped near Sturgis before getting on I-90 and waited for a let up in the rain but that time never came.  So I continued at what seemed like a snail’s pace only to stop again at about the Piedmont area.  Again I had to continue on with no letup in the rain.  Finally, around Black Hawk I ran out of the rain and got home about 6:30 pm.  Home was at 618 Minnelusa Dr. in west Rapid (a small 2 bedroom house built in the 1930’s).  The back of the house was about 50’ from Rapid Creek and on the west side of the creek from Baken Park Shopping Center, roughly opposite the Piggly Wiggly store location (now Boyd’s).  

When I got home I was shaking like a leaf and told Nita about the crazy rain.  I changed clothes into my cutoffs and tee shirt.  After some thought I decided to load up some of our most valuable possessions just in case we would have to evacuate.  We threw a change of clothes in Nita’s car and just waited.  It started raining about 7 pm and came down as hard as it did when I was driving home.  I called Paul Crosmer to talk about the rain and discuss the future of his homemade wooden sailboat he was storing at our house.  Paul came over and our best thought was to tie the boat to a post used to hold up our carport.  Thinking that the boat was secure Paul took off.  The boat did make it through the flood.

About 8 pm Ron Oney and his girlfriend Libby Balmes (69) showed up to sit out the night with us. The TV station was warning people in areas next to the creek for the potential of flooding and to stay tuned.  By 9 pm the TV announcers were advising people in the low lying areas to leave their homes and go to higher ground.  Ron was always thinking and thought he and I should walk to the west side McDonalds, which was only half a block away, to see if they were closing and possibly score a bag full of food already cooked that would be thrown away.  He was right and we went home and ate the food.

About 10 pm, after repeated warnings to leave home and get to higher ground, a police officer in a patrol car came down the street with his bullhorn and was telling people to leave.  The creek had been steadily rising and it was when the officer came through that we decided we had better leave.   We left about 10:15 to go south down the street to Canyon Lake Dr., then to Mt. View.  From there Ron and Libby were going to their place in north Rapid and Nita and I were going to go to my parent’s house in the Mt. View Cemetery area.  Oney took the lead, Nita second and I brought up the rear.  By the time I got to Canyon Lake Dr. Sioux Park was full of water (there was a house floating out there coming toward us) and water covered Canyon Lake Dr.  As I headed toward Mt. View Dr. I had to cross a bridge at Rapid Creek.  Both of the bridge rails were still there so I decided the road must still be there.  Oney’s car flooded out crossing Mt. View, they made it into the Safeway parking lot and from there walked to Libby’s dad’s house in Robbinsdale.  Nita’s car floated at the same intersection but the tires caught traction in a center island and she was able to get onto unflooded pavement on Mt. View.  She made it to my parent’s house okay.  My Scout flooded going across the bridge and I made it to the side entrance of Baken Park and then I pushed it down to the entrance of Piggly Wiggly onto yet unflooded pavement. The night manager was still there after having sent everyone else home.  It was probably 10:45 when I got there and the first thing I did was to make 3 trips from my vehicle into the store with the few prized possessions I had saved from our house.  By the time I had finished the water was thigh high on me and rising.  About 11 pm I called my Mom to let her know where I was.  She said Nita had not gotten there yet, so I had no knowledge of her whereabouts.  The phone went out while we were talking, followed by the store lights.

Part II...
The next couple of hours were the most terrifying.  There were no windows in the back of the store (the creek side of the store), just big steel sliding doors which were used to get merchandise into the store.  Water was coming in at a pretty good rate around the bottom and sides of the doors and the thought came to me that there was no means of escape should the store fill with water.  The front of the store faced Mt. View and was full of windows.  From the ground up was about 2 ½’ of brick then the window up to probably 8’.  We watched the water rise to 4’ to 5’ deep from what I could tell.  The view looking through the gap was terrifying.  Heavy rain coming down but then fires burning as well. I learned the fires were coming from exploding propane tanks and ruptured natural gas lines.  The rain finally stopped around 1 pm.  Shortly after the rain stopped there were a couple of speed boats running around on the flooded  Mt. View Rd., their mission we guessed was in trying to rescue people caught in the raging waters, most taking refuge on building roofs.  In all there was probably 6” of mud throughout the store.  My Scout floated down about 30’ from where I left it and had water in it up to the dashboard. 
    
The store manager walked in from his house about 5 am so knowing I could get through, I took off and walked to my parent’s house and got there about 6 am.  Nita had gotten there without any further complications.  Nita and my dad had spent a good portion of their night at the Clarkson Nursing Home helping to move residents across Mt. View Rd. to safe haven in a gas station.

Our house floated off of its foundation (anchor bolts were not used in the 30’s) but surprisingly did not get washed away, we figured it was the big stucco house next door that protected it.  All of the contents were ruined however.  After a couple of months staying with my parents we moved into a HUD mobile home, high and dry in Rapid Valley.
    
The 50th anniversary of the flood is shown in pictures in the hardbound book named Turning Point.  Nita and I are shown on the back cover (and on page 50) walking north on Minnelusa Dr. toward W. Main St. (McDonalds parking lot with the Cadillac teetering on the edge in the background) a couple of days after the flood.
Ron and Nita (McKinstry) Eikenberry
(This book is now available it buy - Mary Beth)

After reading Ron and Nita (McKinstry) Eikenberry’s flood story about living on Minnelusa Drive during the flood, I had to add this story!  I was raised on that street until I was 13 years old and then we moved to our new home. The photo is the back of the house when it was first built and there was a beautiful view of the cabins in Baken Park. Later a shopping mall was put in which I thought was great!

Our little red brick house was one of the only homes that did not get structural damage on our street, but water did come in the house because a small basement window broke. My dad wanted to give the building to the city, but they did not want it, so he moved it up to his Deadwood Avenue property. He eventually sold the building to Steve Van Houten’s construction company for their office.
Mary Beth Johnson (Howe)

I was in Africa, when the flood happened. I had gone with my father, Dr. E.S. Palmerton, who went to do eye surgery at a mission hospital in what was then Zaire (now Congo). He was located at a large hospital in Kimpese, and I went to help out at a small mission station in Nsona Mpangu about 70 km away from Kimpese, where there was a small school and a small clinic.

We heard on Radio-Free Europe about the flood in Rapid City.  The story we heard was that a dam had burst, Rapid City had been flooded, that there were many casualties.  My first thoughts were that Pactola had failed (only later did I learn it was Canyon Lake dam that had failed). We were frantic – my aunt and uncle lived right on Rapid Creek, not that far below Pactola. My sister and her family were in Rapid visiting my mother.  Where I was, we could receive Radio Free Europe, but the only means of 2-way communication was short-wave radio.

At the time of the flood, my father had gone into “the mountains” (I never knew where that was) to help train a doctor at a small hospital there to do eye surgery. We knew he was not in Kimpese and there was no way to contact him.

In Nsona Mpangu, we got on the short-wave radio, and were able to reach a ham radio operator in South Africa. This person reached a ham radio operator in Pennsylvania, who was able to reach the police station in Rapid City (by radio I believe, as I think the phone lines were down). The police sent a squad car to my mother’s house and determined that everyone was okay, including my aunt and uncle. The house where my aunt and uncle lived was flooded, but they were safe, having been able to get to higher ground.  This information was relayed back to us in the same fashion – police, to the ham radio operator in Pennsylvania, to the ham radio operator in South Africa, to us on our short-wave radio.  We then drove to Kimpese, knowing that Dad would probably have heard the news and would be frantically trying to get back to a place where there would be more information. We were in Kimpese when he arrived and could tell him that everyone in our family were okay.
Patrica Palmerton

My flood story begins with the initial deluge. I was interning at Rapid Cable TV for Dick Shilvock as part of my curriculum at SDSU. The producer/director and I never had seen such a “bruised purplish green” sky. We hopped in his Jeep to drive to a location for some dramatic footage to air in our nightly newscast. Then, the skies opened up. Within moments we couldn’t see past the hood. There was nothing to record.

When power failed all over town, we knew there’d be no newscast, so I crashed at his place east of the Gap. Waking at sunrise, we tuned in KIMM to hear Shilvock on-the-air and decided to join him at KIMM’s studios in Rapid Valley. I don’t remember what route we took; we did have to get through a police and/or National Guard cordon. My most distinct memory was of all the cars strewn around the dealerships along Omaha Boulevard, upside down and atop roofs. The destruction was appalling; Rapid Creek still was raging.

Arriving at KIMM, Shilvock and station owner Gene Taylor told us that station engineer Gary Peterson was setting up a broadcast link from the Pennington County Courthouse, which would serve as disaster response headquarters. I was directed to go there and begin relaying on-air any “official announcements” to listeners. Only two radio stations were operating under the Emergency Broadcast System — KIMM and KOTA. Stu Steele, a former Pennington County Commissioner, was seated next to me and broadcasting for KOTA from the make-shift studio set-up.

The next two weeks are pretty much a blur. I spent each broadcast day indoors and away from the horrors folks were experiencing. I knew my family was alright and that my father and brother Ben were on a search team. Beyond that, I was reading “boil water” and “get immunized” announcement after announcement culminating in the first broadcast of nearly 2,000 names of people on a “missing persons list” compiled from various sources. It took hours.

Twenty-four hours later, we read it again. It was half as long. A reporting and verification system was in-place. We learned from the FBI and other law enforcement that they were culling the list for escapees, bail-jumpers, and other scofflaws who “just happened to be” vacationing in the Black Hills on June 9, 1972 and hadn’t been heard from. But most anticipated was the official release of people identified as flood fatalities. When the list was handed to us, there was no time to scan it. In the business it was what is called a “cold read.”

I was concerned about my tone of voice and the pace at which I should read the names. This was not a list to race through; each name would mean something to someone and  a moment for their reaction was necessary. But the names should be read ponderously or overly dramatically. As I recall the experience, about a half-dozen names in, there was the name of someone I recognized and that locked-in my tone of sober bewilderment and grief for the rest of the list.

Of course, it had to be read again with full knowledge that particular people I knew from school, from Scouts, from my father’s business, childhood friends, and familiar names and faces from my life in Rapid City.

One other highlight. A few days into the recovery a National Guard pilot who was not from the area used an open-channel to announce what he mistakenly believed to be Pactola Dam appeared to have ruptured. Were that true, there would be practically no ground high enough to which anyone could scramble for safety. Panic broke out all over town. My own mental image was of a tidal wave swatting the “brontosaurus” of the top of Dinosaur Hill. I was whisked to Camp Rapid to climb aboard a helicopter with Sen. Jim Abourezk to fly up Rapid Creek, past Canyon Lake, to Pactola Reservoir and on to Deefield Reservoir to report.
Ned Leonard

The day of the flood…

       I was short one class from college graduation, so I stayed in Lincoln Nebraska that summer.  I was planning a weekend trip to Las Vegas with a friend and was trying to reach my parents on the phone to let them know.  Since I could not reach them, I decided to go shopping for clothes to wear.  I remember standing at the counter to pay for my items and there was a TV just above the cashier when a news flash came across the screen about the flood in Rapid. I was shocked and told the clerk I had to leave… I hurried home and waited for two days to hear from my parents that they were okay.  

      I stayed in Lincoln that following year and worked, because I knew my parents would be busy helping. My father was asked to head the newly formed Disaster Foundation, a volunteer organization offering immediate financial support victims of the flood. Working with the students from the School of Mines & Technology, the foundation established a system for distributing money in three phases.  It was nine months of long hard work. 

     Ladies from the National Secretaries Association made out checks for flood victims at the National College of Business and were distributed to people at the Soule building at the fairgrounds. Donations totaling more than $1.4 million came in from more than 20,000 donors all over the world.  Because all the work done was by volunteers and donations promptly invested in interest-drawing certificates of deposit, the foundation was able to give out more money than they received, something few charities have ever done. 

     The goal of the foundation was to get out of business.  The stories these flood victims and survivors had a long lasting effect on the foundation volunteers. Even thought the doors of the business closed a year later, the memories remain. 
Mary Beth Johnson (Howe)

Classmate Don Olivers's family flood story... taken from the Rapid City Journal.

      I was working the 3-11 PM  shift, doing electronic assembly work, at Control Data Inc which was located near what was to be the future Rushmore Mall on Disk Drive. Having only one vehicle, my now x-husband, had dropped me off and was to pick me up after work.
     The day was extremely hot, humid and still. During our dinner break, around 7 PM, my coworkers and I sat outside on the picnic tables that faced east, the air was thick with an eire yellowish hue and we all sensed a storm was soon to come. Not long after it began to rain hard. Around 9:30 or 10 PM the lights went out, the emergency lights came on and we waited, thinking it would only be for a short time before they would come back on and we could resume working. Almost an hour went by before our supervisor received permission to send us home. I caught a ride with a good friend, Cheryl Levine, who had recently moved to Rapid City from Bison SD and lived near Black Hawk while I, at that time, was living in a kitchenette at Mann’s Motel  on Sturgis Rd.
    The night was like black ink and raining so hard we could barely see more than a few feet in front of us. We got on interstate and took the West Blvd off ramp. When we came to Omaha we were directed to go south by a man in a yellow slicker waving a flashlight and not allowed to proceed west where we needed to go. Cheryl continued to St Joe and rationalized we could go around the block and turn down Main St. Little did we realize just behind us, the wall of water had come through, washing everyone behind us into the raging water and scattering debris.
   It was surreal coming around the corner on 9th and having the headlight beams reflect on the debris and high water blocking the street. We still thought somehow we could get around this blockage and go home.
    Turning around we proceeded back to St Joe and saw people going into the Brass Rail. Not having a plan B yet, we parked and went in to have a drink and think about what to do next. The place was lit by candles, but they were still open for business commenting there was no place to go anyway. I attempted calling my husband on their phone but it was out. Other people who were in there were also in our same predicament and told us they had tried and there was no way to drive up Main or Omaha.
     By this time the rain was letting up and we decided to drive up Skyline Dr to see if we could see anything. Stopping at the first overlook we got out…to the north we could see fires burning, could hear the explosions of propane tanks, the voices of people screaming and crying…it was then the full reality of it all hit us! This was bad! Really,really bad!!
     I had to calm my panic wondering where my husband was and siblings and parents,who lived a block north of the creek on 5th Avenue off Jackson Blvd.
My in laws, who lived in Robbinsdale and were out of town had left a key hidden in case we needed anything while they were gone. I suggested we go there and use the phone, we did and could not get a line. By then it was about 2 or 3 AM, so we curled up on the couch, trying to sleep and waited for morning.
I don’t recall the time the lights came back on, but we turned the radio on and started listening to  the news of all the loss of life and destruction, worrying if my family and our coworkers had all made it ok.
     I don’t recall when my husband and I reunited, but was sometime that day. He explained he had been attempting to get to my work to pick me up by going up 5th St, but when he saw there was only one railing on the bridge decided against it…lucky for him, because the bridge was gone.
     The water had receded so I could check on my siblings and parents, they had gone to West JR High, along with the other neighbors for the night after being prompted to leave and move to higher ground. My youngest brother told of him and the neighborhood boys walking over to the bridge on Western Avenue and watching the paddle boats from Canyon Lake float by, that’s when they figured they should probably get out of there!
     ther than mud and water in their basements my parents neighborhood was in good shape. My dad, however, lost his employer and employer’s wife who lived at the end of the street..
     Returning to work there were many harrowing stories to be heard of survival and finding bodies, we were all blessed that none of us lost our lives that night because we all came so very close!
Gwendolyn Menke (Rubin)

Part I...
   There is a common theme to many of the stories from those who survived the 1972 Rapid City Flood.  “We had only minutes to get out.” “Our home was condemned.” “We lost everything.”   And such was the story for young Vesper and John Rau and their young son Dana. 
     Married in 1968, the young couple worked at McCrossan Boy’s Ranch and lived in a mobile home court along the Big Sioux River in Sioux Falls, SD.  In that location, they were required to have flood insurance.
     In April 1972, John accepted a job with Gifford Electric in Rapid City and he, Vesper, and their 18-month old son, Dana, relocated their mobile home to Bradsky Trailer Court near the Central  States Fairgrounds.  Today that site is home to the Rapid City Cambell Street Polo Fields.  Vesper became a daycare provider in their home.
     “We had only minutes to get out.” The evening of June 9, the Rau’s were beginning to watch the 10:00 PM news when warnings of flood began to scroll across the bottom of their television screen.  They hurriedly packed a few belongings and were leaving their home as police were going door-to-door telling residents to evacuate immediately.  The Rau family went to the home of Vesper’s parents, Pat and Nellie Matson, on the corner of 5^th and Denver Streets.  A little after 10:30 PM, a wall of water hit that neighborhood taking out a nearby bridge.  According to Vesper, “By the grace of God we were not also victims of the flood, as the waters came within a half a block of the house.”
     “We lost everything.”   When John and Vesper first returned to their mobile home, they were grateful they had not canceled their flood insurance.  Their trailer was caught on a tree in the front yard, it was tipped on its side, and all but a 10” triangle at the top was under water.
     “Our home was condemned.” After the flood waters receded and residents were allowed to go back to their trailer homes, John and his dad retrieved what was salvageable from their home.  Everything was covered in mud so they took clothing, their television, and a few photos including a family picture which had been taken May 8, 1972 for the United Methodist Church directory and their senior pictures.  Marvin and Bernice Rau, John’s parents in Silver City, washed all the clothes, hosed the TV with water and let it dry.  Wonder of wonders, the TV still worked!
     The Rau family stayed with a friend until their insurance money came through.  Along with money from Church Response, the United Methodist Church, and an SBA loan, they purchased another mobile home and through generous help of friends and the community were able to resume their lives in Rapid City.  In 1973 their daughter Angela was born.
     For most flood victims, this would be the end of their tale.  Not so for Vesper and John.
     In 1972 an 18-year old young man from Rockford, Minnesota, Neil Ramlow, was working for a mobile home salvage/restoration company.  His team was assigned work in Rapid City following the flood.   When the ‘clear to proceed’ was given Neil and his fellow workers began their dirty, muddy job in an area along Rapid Creek in east Rapid City.  According to Neil, “This was not a good place to live from what I saw.  I was told there were some that did not make it out alive.”
     Working on a trailer slated for demolition, Neil found it full of mud.  The only things salvageable were some bath fixtures.  While shoveling mud he found a small box on the floor; he dumped the whole mess into a bucket and took it back to the company’s base quarters.  A few days later, Neil was able to give attention to the small box.  He hosed it off with water and found  a 1968 woman’s high school class ring with initials VM, a 1967man’s high school class ring with initials JR, and a man’s ID bracelet bearing the name JOHN on the outside and these words on the inside ‘Merry Christmas Love from your girl.’  Both rings were from Rapid City High School.  Neil showed the items to his work mates and let them know he would find the owners.  Some said ‘Good for you, that’s the right thing to do, Kid.” Others said, “Why bother? They’re probably dead from the flood.”  In Neil’s words, “I made about a half a dozen good attempts over the years to return the rings; most were with no or little response [from school or newspaper].” 

Part II...
    In the fall of 2012, while hunting pheasants in Doland, SD, Neil met a ‘nice lady from Iowa’.  One conversation led to another and she sent Neil 1972 Flood information featured in the South Dakota Magazine.  Neil contacted editor Laura Johnson Andrews who in turn gave Neil the address and contact information at the Rapid City Public Library.  Neil contacted Librarian 1, Stephanie Bents, and again asked for assistance in the return of the rings. “I hope you don’t mind all this but it’s been a long time and I’m not ready to give up.  The rings have been in safe keeping but they need to go home.”
     Within an hour of getting the assignment, Library Associate, Leanna Bussell had located the owner of one of the class rings by searching through a 1968 Rapid City Pinecone yearbook.  There was only one female in the class of ’68 with the initials VM.  Imagine Leanna’s surprise when the owner turned out to be a personal friend!   Vesper (Matson) Wright of Rapid City was contacted with the information.  She was very surprised and touched that someone had kept her ring safe and was trying to locate her after all these years.  She and John Rau, while no longer married, had remained friends over the years and Vesper was able to provide his contact information.
     Neil mailed Vesper’s ring to the library, as the staff wanted to personally deliver it to her; she retrieved it on 12-12-2012.  It has remained on her finger ever since.  On Christmas Day, John was contacted and he received his ring and bracelet January 8, 2013.  He is thrilled to have it back after all this time.  According to John, “We sure appreciate all of your efforts in completing this 40 year adventure.” 
(February 2, 2013...     Black Hills Knowledge network.org)
Vespar Wright (Matson)