Chris Tscharner

Written Memory

I am Chris Tscharner. Though I live in Severna Park, Maryland now, I lived the first 18 years of my life in Rapid City. I was 12 when the flood hit. We lived on Franklin Street in the West Blvd area, so we wern't affected directly. My brother and I had friends sleeping over that night. I recall the next morning my dad came into our rooms and said "Don't drink the water - The flood hit and contaminated the water supply". Our group of friends hiked up to the top of Skyline Drive and looked at the devastation from on top of Dinosaur Park. I remember seeing cars thrown about like they were toy cars. My dad, who owned Jack's Camera Shop on St. Joe for many years until his death in 1978 was friends with Dr. Crowder, who perished in the flood (see the Dana Kreber story below). I can also my dad having steady business restoring both movies and photographs which were damaged by the flood waters. (He perfected the process via on the job experience.)