Flood of 1972: a recollection

JUNE 9TH, 1972 - THE RAPID CITY FLOOD

Recollections of Edgar W. and Joan T. Matuska of the Rapid City Flood

Joan and I purchased Samuel’s Studio on January 1st, 1972, from Irving Bank, my previous boss of almost 6 years. Samuel’s Studio was located on the back side of the Baken Park Shopping Center, #25. Joan was teaching Chemistry/Biology at Stevens High School and was the Cheerleading Advisor as well. Joan joined me in the active management of the Studio upon retiring from teaching at the start of June, 1972. I had retired in 1970 from my SD Army National Guardsman duties as a Tactical Training Officer in the South Dakota Military Academy and as a 1st Lieutenant and Executive Officer of the Public Information Detachment of the SDANG. We lived in a small rented house on 3rd Street, a half-a-block from the County Court House and Jail.

BRAEBURN ADDITION
JUNE 9th, It started to rain in the morning, turned into a heavy rain, and then became a cloud burst that continued to get heavier and heavier. Flooding was reported in some areas of Rapid City and the Black Hills.
As new owners, we had just completed a remodeling effort which include new paneling, paint, remodeling of the dressing room, and re-lacquering of the paneled walls and work tables. At the end of the business day on June 9th, 1972, I cleaned up the last brush from the last lacquered panel wall. Joan went home to be with her visiting brother, John Doom and his fiancée, (MAS) Mary Ann Schaefer. I, in my usual business attire of suit and tie, drove out to the Braeburn Addition to check on and babysit my ex-boss’s house.
It was one of two houses located on a small sliver of land between the cliffs and Rapid Creek. After crossing the small bridge that connected that small sliver of land to the rest of the Braeburn Addition, I arrived at the house, picked up the mail, and used the garage door opener to access the structure. I placed the mail on the hood of my boss’s Mark lll Lincoln and went into the house. The rain was intensifying to even more of a downpour, the likes I had never seen before or since.
After checking the house for leaks or structural damage from the rain or wind, I proceeded out to the bridge to see what was happening to the water level below it. On the bridge were numerous people, 15, 20, or so, all doing the same, checking the level of the water under the bridge. They were wet, worried, frightened, and very concerned. Included in this grouping was the Hogan family; husband, wife, and son, from the house next door to Irv’s. The Hogan family, plus numerous others from the Braeburn Addition, continued to watch as the water rose. In a short time, I was very wet and soaked to the bone. I was bare headed and in a very wet shirt, suit jacket and pants, shoes, and socks.
The water rose to the very bottom of the bridge understructure, paused, and then started to recede. I was told later that this happened because debris, caused by rushing water up stream, was damming up the creek. I thought the worst was over, that I didn’t need to protect Mr. Bank’s home any longer, gave my apologies, promised to return, and excused myself to go home and change into dry clothes. I left for our house in the Studio’s station wagon, heavily loaded with wedding photographic equipment for the next day.
Upon reaching home, Joan made me a sandwich and we made plans to go back to the Braeburn Addition. I dried off, changed into the only real grubs I had, my National Guard jacket, fatigues, hat, and boots complete with SDANG patches and officer bars. The material in that uniform makes it and the boots almost indestructible and provides a reasonable amount of weather protection. Hey, it was better than a suit and tie! The four of us, Joan, John, MAS, and I piled into Joan’s blue Volkswagen Bug and set off to the Canyon Lake area of Rapid City.
First, we tried to travel down Jackson Boulevard and we were stopped by police just prior to Sheridan Lake Road. We then tried to travel down Canyon Lake Drive from Baken Park, but soon became concerned with the height of the water under that bridge. We then went to West Main, across Sioux San Drive, and then up Canyon Lake Drive to Jackson Boulevard where we were again stopped by a police officer in front of the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church. He said, “Hey mister you can’t go any further, turn around”. I said, “Don’t be ridiculous, I just came from there, it wasn’t all that bad!”. He said, “Look in the Lake (Canyon Lake)”. I did and there was the house that had been next to my Boss’s house, floating down the middle of the lake with the son of the neighbor, the Hogans, riding on top the roof . . . headed for the Dam. We turned around and backtracked to the Studio in the Baken Park Shopping Center.

THE STUDIO AND BAKEN PARK
The Studio was located on the back side of the Baken Park Shopping Center . . . or as I called it “The Rear End of Baken Park!”. Upon reaching the Studio, we threw our efforts in putting stuff sitting on the floor or on low shelving, up upon the countertops. We picked up camera equipment and placed it even higher in the camera room, production room, and darkroom. We picked up most of the completed orders and our archive negative files, but missed 10 or so class composites on the front counter from our out of town contract schools. Those composites had just been returned from the calligrapher that morning. We also missed several boxes of negatives from the Class of 1972 and some current weddings. We spent weeks and hundreds of hours washing negatives of those files that we missed setting up high enough. The washing process was to no avail as the bacteria from the flood waters completely destroyed the images contained within the negatives. Many of the Out-Of-Town School Composites had to be completely recreated, sometimes by acquiring billfold images back from our Out-Of-Town Senior customers. Two front windows of the Studio were broken out by the flood waters but the front door remained intact. The flood waters swept out much the furniture in the front reception area, stripped the walls of framed portraits, overturned the customer counter with our composites, and left a 3 to 8 foot water mark on the walls of the Studio. In 8 hours, due to flood damage, we doubled our studio debt. Then, someone opened the front door or our Studio and hollered:

“YOU’D BETTER GET OUT . . . THERE’S A WALL OF WATER COMING!
We grabbed what we could, ran outside and jumped into the blue Volkswagen and headed north towards the rear edge of the bank. As we turned the corner, a wall of water caught the back end of the car and gave us a push around the side of the bank. We were lucky, we made it out of the path of the flood waters . . . others were not so lucky including several cars traveling both east and west on West Main Street including a bus of children and their adult advisors. What happened to the cars has never been clear in our minds, but the bus continued eastward towards the front of Baken Park Shopping Center. The side of the bus was being battered by the flood waters that were now rising and rushing across the front parking lot of the Shopping Center. This forced the driver to pull into the Baken Park Gas Station on the corner of Moutainview Road and West Main Street. The driver wedged the bus up against the South side of gas pumps of the station which prevented the bus from being swept into the main flow of the flood waters. The people in the bus evacuated themselves from the bus into the gas station and perched upon its counters, pop machine, and freezer to get out of the water. The bus group remained there until much later, when they were transported, after the flood waters had started to recede, from the gas station to the Baken Park Shopping Center proper. None of us in Baken Park, knew at that time, if any of the bus occupants had survived or that one of the children from the bus group was injured with bad cuts to the legs.
As we pulled the Volkswagen around the corner to the front of the Shopping Center, the water flow was already causing vehicles to stall with motors sputtering and quitting. We drove by a car stopped, full of young girls, who’s motor had quit. Not wanting to have the same happen to us, I drove up on the awning covered sidewalk of the shopping center to a point between Mills Drug & Osborn’s. We exited the car and immediately ran back to the stalled car as the water started to overflow the hood of the car and push it backwards into deeper water. John, my brother-in-law, and I along with several others assisted the girls out of the side windows of their car as the doors could not be opened because of the pressure of the flood waters rushing around the car’s body


THE FRONT OF THE BAKEN PARK SHOPPING CENTER
The flood waters’ flow continued to intensify and its level continued to rise. We did not know how high the water was going to get. A younger gentleman was leaning against his pickup that had high livestock railings on its sides. I asked him if we could use it as a ladder to move the 40 or so people that were standing in the parking lot, to the roof of the Shopping Center. This seemed like a good idea to most so the process was started. We stepped up into the bed of the pickup, grab a bar of the livestock railing, and pulled ourselves up onto the awning and then the roof. From the roof, we had a spectacular view of the flood waters, the devastation, and the ominous sight of the real-estate sign between us and McDonald’s, still lit, revolving, water almost covering it, going around and around. As we watched, that eerie sign kept turning. More and more calls for help came from people on car rooftops, people hanging onto debris, or on and in the homes across Rapid Creek within that low spot between McDonald’s and Canyon Lake Drive. Unfortunately, there was’t anything we could do. As we watched, the Haggerty's Parade started. There before us, in the middle of the parking lot, were wood flat display counters . . . floating by with stacks of sweaters, shirts, towels, and blankets along with needles, threads, and other sewing notions. Almost like a funeral procession! The back and front windows of Haggerty’s had been broken out and the flood waters were clearing the inventory off the sales floor. Since, by that time, most of us were wet and cold, a number of us climbed down, waded out into the water, grabbed a handful of blankets and returned to throw them up on top of the roof. We then joined the others back on top of the roof and wrapped the blankets around ourselves. Later, we went to see if anyone in or by Haggerty’s needed help. It was an eerie and spooky sight to see flat calm water, 3 feet or so deep, from side to side and from the front to the back of the store, with no visible store fixtures or furniture.
Then the fireworks started! Looking to the East, from the rooftop of Baken Park into the Gap, huge bolts of electricity started to light up the sky (courtesy of the electrical sub-station). Then the explosions and fire filled further back in the gap. The end effect was that most of us just knew that downtown Rapid City was not only flooding but being destroyed by explosions and fire. This effect was of course courtesy of the gas lines being severed as building and trailers were being torn away from their foundations. We stood there in awe . . . how frightening it is to see your world destroyed by water and fire. The fires as well as the depth and ferociousness of the waters started to receded. We descended from the roof. We then decided to see if anyone was still stranded in the gas station. The pickup truck, with the livestock railings, was used to drive out to the gas station and rescue the members of the stranded bus, including the boy that was badly cut. The person who that owned that pickup truck is unknown to me, but he was godsend and help save many that night.
By this time, the people who had taken refuge in the Baken Park Shopping Center, were cold, wet, stressed, and showing signs of going into shock. They needed dry clothes, dry surroundings, & warmth. I crawled through Hardware Hank’s broken out front door, found a sledge hammer and proceeded to the front doors of SS Kresge. Up until such time that I sledged hammered their front doors, SS Kresge had only sustained damage of an inch or 2 of water in their very back storeroom. I broke out the windows of the front doors and asked everyone to enter, go to the clothes departments, and change out of their wet clothing into dry clothing and find dry blankets to wrap around themselves for warmth. They were then asked to find a place to rest in the Luncheonette area of the store. The injured boy from the bus was laid down on the counter so his wound could be cleaned. One our fellow refugees worked at Mills Drug and was ask to used her keys to open the store to obtain a first aid kit, which she did. The boy’s wounds, having been cleaned, were additionally cleansed with antiseptic and then bandaged. We found clean water and soft drinks for everyone to quench their thirst and candy bars to eat. Later that morning, I retrieved some lanterns & a camp cook stove from Hardware Hank.
It was about this time that we met the first East German Band boy. The Dakota Days Band Festival was being held in Rapid City at the beginning of June, 1972. Two of the East German Band members were staying with their Rapid City Hosts, the Crowder family, whose home was near Rapid Creek. Dr Crowder and his two sons, plus the two East German Band members, were swept away by the flood waters. The Doctor and his two sons perished in the flood. Mrs. Crowder and two additional children were out of town at the time of the flood and survived. Two men in a boat on a self-appointed rescue mission found one of the boys up and clinging to a tree and pulled him into their boat. They then paddled towards the Baken Park Shopping Center. The boat hit some turbulence at or around the bridge at Baken Park and Canyon Lake Dr and overturned. They then again came to the assistance of the German boy and swam (the three of them) into the South side and front of the shopping center. They had now twice rescued the German band member. The three were all invited to change clothes in Kresge’s and warm up and the boy, who was badly scratched, was consoled and attended to by some of those who were also warming themselves in Kresge’s.
While standing in front of SS Kresge Store, my brother-in-law, John, heard some screams for help. We looked out into the dark parking lot of the shopping center and saw some floating debris, with what appeared to be a small boy clinging to a wooden chair. John waded out into the rushing waters with me close behind, and we rescued the small boy. He turned out to be the second East German Band member. We carefully walked back through the water, and floating debris, towards Baken Park’s sidewalk with the second East German Band Member now in tow. John was able to reassure the boy with his language skills and our rescued lad was met with great enthusiasm by the other East German Band member.
We tried to keep those of us in Baken Park, warm, comforted, and safe. We tried to reassure our little group, that come morning, help would arrive either from law enforcement, fire department, or the National Guard. We used the propane grill, appropriated from Hardware Hank and now on the lunch counter of Kresge’s, to cook and feed them with eggs borrowed from Kresge’s. Shortly before we were allowed to leave Baken Park, the Kresge’s Asst. Manager burst through his broken front doors asking who was responsible for the damage to their store . . . insisting that someone was going to have to pay. I raised my hand and told him I could be found at my Studio on the backside of Baken Park. A short time later, the Kresge’s Manager came into the store and assured me that I would not be held personally responsible for breaking his door, having people change to dry clothes, and for the eggs that we feed those who were stranded in Baked Park. He asked if we could collect the tags from the clothes that had been changed into for his bookkeeping records and then said, after viewing the damages in and around Baken Park, “We got off easy!”.
While we were all eager to get home, we asked everyone to stay put until the waters had safely receded and an appropriate agency had released us. One of our group, one of the men who had rescued the first East German Band member, was very insistent that he was going to leave because he was worried that his family was concerned about what happened to him and might get hurt trying to find him. I said, no, you need to stay here until we are dismissed and asked his friend to make sure he stayed put. A short time later, he was gone. At around 6:00 - 7:00 AM the morning of the 10th, a Deputy Sheriff, in a Jeep Wagoneer, drove into Baken Park. He asked how we were doing, who was in charge, if anyone was injured, what kind of damage had occurred that needed immediate attention, and did we have any deceased individuals. He had water in the front seat if we needed any. He then asked me if I would mind trying to identify a body in the back of the Jeep. It was the young man who had rescued the East German boy and then wanted to leave to check on his family. He had walked across the bridge between Baken Park and McDonalds, stepped on a downed high wire and was electrocuted. To my knowledge, he was the last fatality of the 1972 Rapid City Flood.

THE AFTERMATH
After being dismissed from Baken Park, by a National Guard Officer, we drove back around the North end of Baken Park to check out the damage to the Studio. The damage, as was mentioned previously, was devastating. In 8 to 10 hours, due to flood damage, we doubled our studio debt. While we did receive one of the 1% SBA loans, most did not expect Samuel’s Studio to survive, including the loan officers of our own bank as well as the SBA. That sort of catastrophic loss, both physical and emotional, is very difficult to come back or recover from. Well, we survived and even prospered for 42 some years afterwards.
In front of the Studio, and between us and Rapid Creek, lay a body, stripped of his clothing by the flood waters, whose broken limbs were twisted and horribly contorted. An image that I have never been able to shake. A week or so later, one night after 10:00 PM, the phone rang at the house. It was one of the morticians that we knew from Yankton who had traveled to Rapid City to help. He said, “We know that you live a half a block from the Courthouse. We forgot to pick up our curfew passes. We need 30 or so. You are well known. Could you go down the courthouse and pick us up some.” Sure, I said, happy to. With passes in hand, I drove to the mortuary on Kansas City and 12 Street. As I exited my car and walked up the drive way, I meet three morticians in their white coats walking down the drive way. I asked where I might find my friend and they directed me up the driveway and around the corner. They must have had second thoughts about their directions because as I turned the corner, they caught up with me and then caught me as I turned the corner and came upon two rows of bodies of 25 or more lining each side of the garage of the mortuary. The sight staggered me for a moment. Seeing one body is one thing, seeing 50 or more is a whole different story. After recovering from that startling image, I gave my friend the passes. I was asked again if I could identify anybody, I could not. I would not have been able to recognize my own mother if she had been laying there.
We then left for and reached home, changed clothes, ate a little, grabbed a little sleep, and then returned to Baken Park. When we pulled aground the end of Baken Part to the Studio, our back door was open. We thought, “Oh great, we have been broken into!” Or in our case, walked into. And then appeared Shirley, our bookkeeper/office manager, starting to sweep out the mud and throwing out a dead fish. We spent the next two months cleaning, inventorying, washing negatives and prints, cutting sheetrock at the 4 foot level or higher, washing and bleaching the top and underneath the exposed 2x4s. We had to do most of the reconstruction by ourselves because carpenters, electricians, painters, and plumbers were in short supply as everyone needed them. Because the Water Treatment Plant was not functioning, clean drinking water was only available through water stations manned by the National Guard. Most of us felt uneasy about even taking a bath or shower. When John couldn’t stand it anymore, he and MAS went to the Plunge in Hot springs for a swim and a shower. In addition to John and MAS, we had two additional family members come in from Minnesota to help, Joan’s brother, Mark, and a brother-in-law, Bud. I never picked up a camera for that whole time as I could not document either my own losses or others. We were there, at the Studio, when they had the false alarm, a week or so later, that Pactola Dam had burst. We were there when a group of thieves pulled a truck up to Haggerty’s and helped their staff and volunteers load what little they could salvage and then fled and disappeared with the stolen merchandise.
Irv’s house in the Braeburn Addition, was completely moved off of its foundation and came to rest some 50 yards downstream on top of the property where the Hogan home once rested. A safe, buried in the home’s crawl space, contained a number of family heirlooms, did not move but was covered over by flood mud. The safe was uncovered and recovered a week or so later by the Bank family, from within the crawlspace’s foundation layout. The crystal cabinet in the home’s dining room was lying face down in the mud on the floor, but not a pane of glass, nor a crystal plate or glass within the cabinet, was broken. Water flood marks within the house ranged from one foot to eight feet with some marks on the ceiling. As far as I can remember, no doors or windows were broken, but I may have left the door from the garage into the kitchen open. The garage roof had collapsed upon the two cars enclose within, but the garage walls remained intact and had folded in upon itself. Even though the house had been floated off its crawl space foundation, structurally it remained intact. The garage however, had been ripped off its slab foundation but remained attached to the house. The mail that I had placed upon the hood of the Mark III during the evening of the June 9th’s Rapid City Flood, was still in place on the car’s hood, even though the house had moved and the roof of the house had collapsed upon the car and caved in the car’s roof.
In the early years and many years later, when the humidity was high, we could still smell the Flood as it seeped out of the walls and floor of the Studio. Many times, when it started to rain, Joan and I would suddenly find ourselves standing outside of the Studio on the sidewalk, saying nothing and just quietly watching it rain. When the radio sounds a weather alert, I do not panic but I also do not mess around . . . we move to higher ground or a safe interior room. I count myself lucky to have survived the night of the flood. I count at least four or so times that I might have not survived the event and 3 or so times that Joan, her brother and his fiancée, could have lost their lives as well. This does not count lightning, fire, gas explosion, poisonous gas, electrocution, etc. . . . all of which occurred at various places throughout the Rapid City and Black Hills Area during the Flood. We will always remember the others that were not lucky as us.
Two weeks later, in the RC Journal, they ran an interview with a young lady that was supposed to get married that Saturday after that Friday, June 9th, 1972. She was one of the girls we pulled from the car that was being swept away by flood waters. When asked how she and others fared in Baken Park, she said that everything was done to keep her and others safe and sound, because after all, “The National Guard Declared Martial Law that night by at least 11:00 PM and it lasted until we were rescued the following morning”. I have jokingly since, asked my friends at the State Headquarters at Camp Rapid, when are they going to send my check for one night’s Active Duty. I did not realize it at the time, that my choice of grubby clothes proved very useful on the night of the Rapid City Flood, June 9th, 1972. Almost everyone did what I asked them to do!

As best remembered & recalled by:

Edgar W. & Joan T. Matuska