1964 flood: Worst flood in Montana's history left death, destruction

Karl Puckett, kpuckett@greatfallstribune.com 9:26 a.m. MDT May 29, 2014

Phillip Rattler visits the Holy Family Mission Cemetery where victims of the 1964 flood are buried. Rattler attempted to save several people who were trapped on a pickup truck after the Two Medicine River overflowed its banks. “I guess I feel like I didn’t do enough,” he said.(Photo: TRIBUNE PHOTO/RION SANDERS)

BROWNING – Phillip Rattler, also called Papoose, inspects gravestones beneath white crosses at a Catholic cemetery 14 miles south of here off of U.S. Highway 89, where the Rocky Mountains, still holding snow, look sugar glazed.

"This is '64 here," says Rattler, pausing and noting the death date carved into one.

"'64 here,'" he says at another grave, as he recites the year again and again while walking down rows.

The 1964 flood in Montana claimed 31 lives, many of them children and all but one on the Blackfeet Reservation. Its 50th anniversary is June 7 and June 8.

Rattler personally watched several people disappear. They were trapped in a flatbed truck that was being engulfed by the rising Two Medicine River south of Browning. He recently visited the cemetery where several of the victims are buried, noting that he never felt more helpless than he did on that day a half century ago.

The Holy Family Mission Cemetery on Joe Show East Road near Browning where victims of the 1964 flood are buried. In all 30 people died on the Blackfeet Reservation and another man died in Augusta. (Photo: TRIBUNE PHOTO/RION SANDERS)

"I used to see them screaming and hollering in my sleep," Rattler said.

Rattler wasn't alone in feeling powerless.

The infamous flood 50 years ago overwhelmed streams and rivers draining out of the Rocky Mountains, forcing the evacuation of 8,700 people, according to a report on the flood by the U.S. Geological Service.

The greatest damage was concentrated in an area bounded by the Dearborn River on the south, Interstate 15 on the east between Great Falls and Helena, the Middle Fork of the Flathead River and Glacier National Park on the north and the Flathead River on the west, a 12,000-square-mile area with the Continental Divide running through it.

On June 7 and June 8, biblical rains pounded higher-than-average mountain snow pack causing what the National Weather Service says is the worst flood on record in Montana.

When it was over, damage totaled $62 million which, adjusted for inflation, would total $474 million today, according to the U.S. Geological Survey and state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.

More than $30 million of the damage occurred in communities on the eastern Front, from Glacier National Park and the Blackfeet Reservation south to northern Lewis and Clark County and as far east as Great Falls.

Even 50 years afterward, it's worth remembering the flood, says Gina Loss, a hydrologist for the National Weather Service in Great Falls.

"Any time you have that significant loss of life, it's just something you need to keep in mind that this did happen at one point," Loss said. "From the weather perspective, there's nothing saying that it couldn't happen again."

State's flood season

Mid-May to mid-June is flood season in Montana.

This year, locations still exist where 30 to 40 inches of water remain locked in deep mountain snow that a prolonged rain or warm weather or heavy thunderstorm could quickly melt, Loss

said. But to date, alternating cooler and warmer temperatures, and minimal precipitation, have kept spring runoff in check.

It didn't happen that way in 1964.

"Oh, it just roared," Warren Harding, 92, said of the Sun River, one of many streams and rivers that flooded in northwestern and northcentral Montana.

Harding is a retired National Weather Service meteorologist who was the lead forecaster on duty in Great Falls at the time of the flood.

In a typical year, streams and rivers that meander out of the mountains are harnessed for irrigation, making the prairie bloom with wheat and barley and grasses and hay for livestock.

Prior to 1964, serious flooding had occurred in 1927, 1938, 1948 and 1953.

But as John Fassler writes in the book "Montana Weather," the intensity of a rainstorm on June 7 and June 8, 1964, made the flood that year the most devastating and spectacular on record. Heavy snowpack in the mountains was released in the extreme rainfall, which fell an inch an hour. The heavy rainfall was produced from the collision of moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, an upper level low-pressure system approaching from the west and surface high pressure and associated cold air sliding down from the north.

"It's just a really good example of what can happen when all the ingredients come together in the wrong way," Loss said.

Loss said it's possible that a similar flood today might result in less loss of life.

Technological advances have improved forecasting and weather reporting and thus warnings.

In 1964, for example, river gauge readings were recorded by charts and a network of observers who lived near streams and rivers, she said. Unless a call was received from an observer, there was no way of knowing what the stream was doing without a U.S. Geological Survey official going out and reading the chart. Now, river gauge readings are collected and then transmitted via satellite every hour so the Weather Service sees real-time stream conditions, Loss said.

And communication is better too, especially with the advent of social media.

"I think they did the best job they could with the tools they had, but there's not much you can do when you have dams failing," Loss said. "Once that happens, you are at the mercy of Mother Nature."

Water overflows dam

West of Augusta, water rushed over the top of the 199-foot-high Gibson Dam, releasing a wave into the Sun River that flooded agricultural land and every community between the dam and Great Falls, a distance of 80 miles.

A single acre foot of water equals 325,851 gallons and weighs 1.3 tons. Gibson Reservoir holds 99,000 acre-feet of water. That's what came rushing down the Sun River at farmers and ranchers and the communities of Fort Shaw, Simms, Sun River, Vaughn and Great Falls at a pace of 50,000 cubic feet per second.

"It's hard to describe it," Harding said.

Officials with what was then known as the Weather Bureau in Great Falls lost communication with Gibson Dam operators, the result of flood-caused power outages, Harding said. At midnight, they lost touch with weather observers in Simms, which is 30 miles west of Great Falls.

"They had been calling every hour because we really wanted to see what it peaked at," Harding said of the Sun River observers. "The last time they had said they had to go upstairs because it was starting to come into their house."

At 3 a.m., June 9, Harding, who lived on a ranch above the river at Simms, finished his shift at the Weather Bureau in Great Falls, hopped in his Volkswagen and headed west. His mission was to check the river gauge on the Sun River so he could report the crest. At the community of Sun River, he encountered a foot of water on the main highway. Motorists were pushing their vehicles. Harding detoured and used the Simms-Ashuelot Road, which is on higher ground, to reach Simms. He almost didn't make it across Blackfoot Creek, which was overtaking the road.

"They float pretty easy," Harding said of Volkswagens. "I gunned it and it was kind of like a boat and the wheels propelled me across, but it was very stupid."

Harding finally reached Simms and, on foot, climbed a hill above the Simms-Fairfield Bridge, which crosses the Sun River. The river gauge was under water. But from that vantage point, Harding snapped a photograph showing the river rushing across the main stringers of the bridge. It was cresting at an 13.7 feet high, which is 6 feet above flood stage.

The photo also captured a helicopter in the sky. Its crew had just rescued the incommunicado Simms weather observers, who were plucked off the roof of their house.

The rainfall map kept by the Weather Service of June 7-8 shows rainfall amounts in the teens across the Front over the two days of flooding, including 14 inches west of Choteau, and 16 inches west of Browning, amounts that Loss called incredible.

The average rainfall for Great Falls for an entire year is 14.9 inches.

"It's very difficult for us in Montana to forecast a rain event that could bring as much precipitation as this particular event did," Loss said.

Blackfeet hard hit

No area was harder hit than the Blackfeet Reservation.

Of the 31 fatalities, 30 occurred on the reservation, where a wall of water as high as 20 feet was reported on Birch Creek. Dam failures on both Birch Creek and the Two-Medicine River releasing reservoirs of water onto unsuspecting victims downstream.

"Well, we looked west, then we could see this big wall of water comin'," Eloise England said. "So I said, 'Well, go get way up high, as high as we could get.'"

Today, England is 83. In 1964, she was 34, a rancher, wife and mother of six children. The family lived along Birch Creek on a ranch nine miles west of Valier, directly in the path of the looming disaster.

That morning, an announcement was broadcast over KSEN Radio in Shelby that water had broken through Swift Dam, upstream from England's place.

She told her husband, Gilbert, and he and their oldest son, Buzz, who had just graduated from the eighth grade, went to a bottoms area to move cow-calf pairs to higher ground. They were joined by Buzz's friend, Butch. The boys checked the area three times, but Gilbert didn't see one of the cows come out and insisted on going in to look for it.

"He was the kind of person who needed to see for himself," Buzz England said.

Buzz saw it coming. Horses were running in front trying to escape. It was a tidal wave of water.

He screamed at his father to get out of the bottoms, but it was too late.

"When that big wall busted around that corner, that's what scared the hell out of us," Buzz England said. "I hollered at him. Butch finally grabbed me and said, 'We gotta get out of here.'"

Gilbert England, who was 43, was one of four people who perished along Birch Creek whose bodies were never recovered, Eloise England said.

Seeking higher ground

The boys set off for the house, their feet weighed down with what felt like 15 pounds of gumbo. They kicked off their shoes and ran back in bare feet, encountering a 30-foot-wide creek at one point that had been 3 when they had set out to check the cattle. Narrow enough to jump across.

Water reached the tops of the cottonwood trees, Buzz England said. Cattle and horses were being swept up by the water.

"There was this cow, just shot up in the air," Eloise England recalled. "Her ears were all down and she didn't know which way to go. So I ran back to the house and that's where we got in that four-wheel drive and tried to get out."

The vehicle ran into water.

On foot, the family headed for high ground, with Eloise leading the way.

Gilbert Jr., who was about 2, was sitting on Buzz's shoulders. Butch, his friend, was carrying Wanda, who was about 4. Also there were two older children, Smokey and Chicken. The sixth child, Pat, was at an aunt and uncle's place.

When they waded through an irrigation run-off area, Eloise used a post to run into the ground to make sure it was solid and safe to cross.

"She took us across one by one," Buzz England said.

They made it up a hill, then the boys ran about a mile to Highway 44. The family was picked up by a group of college kids headed to the mountains to ski. The next day, Eloise England saddled a horse and searched for her husband. She personally called Tim Babcock, the governor at the time.

"I called him and told him, 'We need a search crew up here because we lost several people and we need help,'" she said.

Death toll high

The death toll on Birch Creek alone was 19.

Because of the rapid rise of the streams and dam failures, many of the 31 people swept up in the flooding had little or no warning, according to the report of the disaster by the U.S. Geological Survey. Many died while trying to reach safety, the report says.

Farther downstream, flood warnings a day in advance reduced the number of casualties and some property damage, the report says.

Among the dead were the entire family of Eloise England's brother, Tom Hall, who lost seven children and his wife.

"Such a crushing blow is a most severe test of faith and courage," Robert White, chief of the Weather Bureau, wrote in a June 29, 1964, letter to Hall expressing condolences.

Many people displaced by the floods lived in tents for the remainder of the summer, said Henry Butterfly Jr., 71, director of water resources for the Blackfeet Tribe. Later, "flood homes" were assembled in Browning and used across the reservation, he said. Hardest hit were residents who lived along the streams and rivers.

To this day, residents gather each year to remember the flood and those who were lost in it.

"It's just never been forgotten by the people here," Butterfly said.

'I watched them drown'

Rattler was 21 when the flood hit.

Today, he's 71, and the health liaison between Benefis Health System and the Blackfeet Tribe.

"It was about the helpless feeling I'd ever had," he said of trying to rescue the stranded people in the pickup. "I watched them drown in front of me."

He and his cousin, Art DeRouche, were driving down the road when they saw the stalled flatbed truck 10 miles south of Browning in the Two Medicine River Valley. There were 16 people trapped on the truck at the time (the driver had gone for help), according to the U.S. Geological Survey report. Those still on the truck were waving and screaming when he arrived, Rattler said.

Water from the Two Medicine River was quickly rising.

Rattler tied barbed wire around his waist and tried to swim out to the truck, but the water was too cold and swift, he said. So DeRouche pulled him back and they tied wire onto a tire and gave it a toss.

"This Cobell girl grabbed it," said Rattler, standing at the site where the rescue attempt occurred. "She probably was about 12 years old. We started pulling it. Waves hit her and she let go and she drowned."

A man named Kay Hoyt arrived with a boat to assist in the rescue, but not before nine people drowned, according to the report.

Rattler is still haunted by what he saw, including a baby floating out into the water and disappearing, along with an elderly woman who was in the cab.

"That's the little baby I seen float out there," Rattler says at the grave of Terry Lee Guardipee, whose grave says, "2 months."

During his walk around the cemetery, he also noted the grave of Galela Cobell, the girl he tried to rescue with the tire. "Geez, she almost made it to her birthday, didn't she?" says Rattler, pointing out she was born June 20, 1950. Rose Grant, who was 84, is buried here too.

The death date on all three of the gravestones, along with those of other flood victims buried there, is June 8, 1964.

Inside

» Shelby radio station owners remember around-the-clock coverage that lasted days /4A

» Eloise Erickson remembers flood of mass destruction /3A

Upcoming

» Monday: Most of west Great Falls, Sun River valley under water, plus military response

» Tuesday: Those on the scene will never forget the drama at the headgates.

» Wednesday: Choteau evacuated

» Thursday Outdoors: The flood had long-lasting effects on area streams, rivers and landscape

» Sunday Business: June 1, a look at how the dams, technology have been improved to prevent such future tragedies

» Sunday, June 1: Columbia Falls, Kalispell also experienced devastating floods

» Historical pages: Keep your eye out for full-page reproductions of Tribune pages from 1964 during the floods

Flood bulletin released by Weather Bureau in Great Falls 9 p.m. June 8, 1964:

Major flooding is in progress on many main rivers and tributaries from Dearborn River northward to the Canadian border east of the Divide and from the Deer Lodge Valley Northward to the Flathead Drainage west of the Continental Divide. Several tributary dams have broken releasing large volumes of water and causing extensive property damage and loss of several lives. Serious major flooding expected in several areas downstream from broken dams and extensive flooding already in progress upper Sun River will reach the Great Falls area early Tuesday.

What's next

Historic photos and recollections will be shared at a free program titled, "50 Years Later: Hindsight and Perspectives on the 1964 Flood Disaster along the Sun River near Great Falls," from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. June 14 at the Montana Historical Society Museum in Helena. Montana Historical Society Representative and 1964 flood-affected resident, Vic Reiman, will offer a personal account and media perspectives of the event. Mary Guokas, Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC) Floodplain Outreach Specialist, will cover differences in flood control and floodplain management efforts since the flood.

Send your memories

Post your memories, photos and videos of the flood to the Tribune's Facebook page. Some memories and images may be included in future coverage in the Tribune print and online.

Honoring victims

The Blackfeet Tribe will honor flood victims at about 10 a.m. June 6 at the Plains Museum along with family and friends.

Online

» Video: Blackfeet reservation residents remember "it was a real disaster"

» Historic photo galleries

30

Deaths.

186

Businesses damaged.

252

Residents rescued by Malmstrom Air Force Base helicopters.

300

Damaged farmsteads and rural residences.

350

Injuries.

475

Number of miles of stream channels with fish habitat sustaining severe damage in Lewis and Clark National Forest.

1,870

Homes damaged.

2,000

Number of people evacuated in Choteau (entire city).

3,000

Number of people requiring evacuation in southwest Great Falls.

5,500

Total persons evacuated from homes

8,700

People fed and sheltered by Red Cross.

$4.4 million

Damage in Great Falls.

$30.7 million

Flood damage east of

the Continental Divide.

$62 million

Total damage in Montana.

120,400

Acres of land inundated by flooding waters.

$400,000

Damage to buildings, utilities, campgrounds in Glacier National Park.

13.7 million

Acres flooded east of

Continental Divide.

Flood victims

Birch Creek, Two Medicine rivers, Blackfeet Reservation

Rolanda Rose Grant, 3 «

Dorothy Hall, 33 «

Robbie Grant Jr., 5 «

Galela Lynn Cobell, 14 «

Edward Hall, 2 «

Jody Hall, 1 «

Peggy Bradley, 8 «

Jerry Wayne Thomas, 5 «

Sam New Breast, 35 «

Mrs. Sam New Breast «

Patricia New Breast «

Alvin Guardipee, 3 «

Terry Lee Guardipee, 2 months «

Lorraine Long Time Sleeping «

Linda Arnoux, 16 «

Ernest Lauffer, 58 «

Gilbert England, 43 «

Ralph Oberlack, 65 «

Joe Hameline, 52 «

Bean Theakson, 45 «

Rose Grant, 84 «

Thomas Hall III, 12 «

Margorie Hall, 10 «

Kathy Hall, 6 «

Marlin Hall, 4 «

Martha Hall, 8 «

Elaine Guardipee, 4 «

Keith Guardipee, 2 «

Ivan Williams «

Stanford Creighton «

Sun River

Joe Westfield, Augusta «

The Holy Family Mission Cemetery on Joe Show East Road near Browning where victims of the 1964 flood are buried. In all 30 people died on the Blackfeet Reservation and another man died in Augusta. (Photo: TRIBUNE PHOTO/RION SANDERS)

The waters of Swift Reservoir, an irrigation dam on Birch Creek west of Dupuyer, failed. A heavy toll of life and property resulted. (Photo: DeMier photo)

Agnes Madplume, 72, and her daughter-in-law dragged eight children to safety when a flood struck without warning at Browning. Water in their cabin routed the family from their beds. (Photo: AP photofax)

Sorrow over missing friends overwhelmed this woman in Valier where normally smally creeks became raging torrents that took a heavy toll in lives and property damage. (Photo: Uncredited)

Although 15-month-old Victoria Edwards of Browning was too young to understand what happened, her expression mirrored the consternation of Montana worst flood. (Photo: AP Photofax)

At Browning, Interior Secretary Stewart L. Udall is given a Blackfeet welcome by Old Chief White Calf, Blackfeet patriarch who was 107 years old. Udall was in Browning looking at Glacier Park's flood damage. Others are Earl Old Person, left, interpreter, and Walter Wetzel, Blackfeet tribal council chairman and president of the American Congress of Indians. (Photo: Bureau of Reclamation photo)

One of a sequence of photos of a swollen Birch Creek wiping out a bridge. (Photo: Paul Bruner photo)

One of a sequence of photos of a swollen Birch Creek wiping out a bridge. (Photo: Paul Bruner photo)

One of a sequence of photos of a swollen Birch Creek wiping out a bridge. (Photo: Paul Bruner photo)

One of a sequence of photos of a swollen Birch Creek wiping out a bridge. (Photo: Paul Bruner photo)

One of a sequence of photos of a swollen Birch Creek wiping out a bridge. (Photo: Paul Bruner photo)

One of a sequence of photos of a swollen Birch Creek wiping out a bridge. (Photo: Paul Bruner photo)

One of a sequence of photos of a swollen Birch Creek wiping out a bridge. (Photo: Paul Bruner photo)

A temporary bridge was built so ranchers could get to their cattle on Birch Creek after a bridge was wiped out in the flood. (Photo: Paul Bruner photo)

Swift dam reconstruction (Photo: Paul Bruner photo)

Swift Dam reconstruction (Photo: Paul Bruner photo)

The Clarence Hirst family of Big Badger, northwest of Dupuyer, was left homeless by flooding in the Birch Creek area. Here they wait in the Valier High gym, hoping for word of missing friends and family. (Photo: AP photofax)

Fifty miles northwest of Great Falls, farm lands lifted whole buildings on the crests of turgid waters. It left barns upside down and pieces of bridges scattered across the countryside. (Photo: Tribune file photo)

A street in Shelby is flooded. (Photo: Clem Dolven photo)

Looking north across the eastern part of Shelby at the Sullivan reservoir, the lower of five reservoirs. (Photo: Clem Dolven photo)

The flood-swollen Marias River at crest early in the week of the flood rose to the level of this Highway 91 bridge south of Shelby. (Photo: Clem Dolven photo)

Swift Dam along Birch Creek located in Pondera County is 205-feet high concrete dam that was completed in 1967 after the original dam constructed in 1912 failed on June 10, 1964. TRIBUNE PHOTO/LARRY BECKNER (Photo: Larry Beckner)

On June 10, 1964 Swift Dam failed sending water down Birch Creek destroying homes and killing people and livestock. TRIBUNE PHOTO/LARRY BECKNER (Photo: Larry Beckner)

Swift Dam along Birch Creek located in Pondera County is 205-feet high concrete dam that was completed in 1967 after the original dam constructed in 1912 failed on June 10, 1964. (Photo: Larry Beckner GREAT FALLS TRIBUNE/LARRY BECKNE)

Swift Dam along Birch Creek located in Pondera County is 205-feet high concrete dam that was completed in 1967 after the original dam constructed in 1912 failed on June 10, 1964. (Photo: Larry Beckner GREAT FALLS TRIBUNE/LARRY BECKNE)

1964 flood. Upstream face of the original Swift Dam on Birch Creek, as photographed in July 1914. (Photo: COURTESY PHOTO/PONDERA COUNTY CANAL AND RESERVOIR CO.)

In the aftermath of the deluge, no evidence is apparent of the existence of Swift Dam on Birch Creek. (Photo: COURTESY PHOTO/PONDERA COUNTY CANAL AND RESERVOIR CO.)

Visible is the riverbed rock shelf of Birch Creek after Swift Dam was swept away. (Photo: COURTESY PHOTO/PONDERA COUNTY CANAL AND RESERVOIR CO.)

The concrete plant feeding construction of the new Swift Dam on Birch Creek as seen on the first day of the concrete phase of construction, May 4, 1966. The plant remained for much of the duration of the project. (Photo: COURTESY PHOTO/PONDERA COUNTY CANAL AND RESERVOIR CO.)

Eloise Erickson stands next to a piece of concrete slab that was part of the original 1912 Swift Dam which failed on June 10, 1964. The current Swift Dam is a 205-feet high concrete dam that was completed in 1967. (Photo: Larry Beckner GREAT FALLS TRIBUNE/LARRY BECKNE)

Joe Bird Rattler talks about 1964 flooding in and around Browning. (Photo: TRIBUNE PHOTO/RION SANDERS)

The cement dam at Lower Two Medicine Lake replaced the earthen dam that failed in 1964. (Photo: TRIBUNE PHOTO/RION SANDERS)

John Murray talks about the 1964 flooding at Lower Two Medicine Lake, April 29, 2014. (Photo: TRIBUNE PHOTO/RION SANDERS)

A memorial on U.S. Highway 89 near State Road 44 list the names of those who lost their lives in the Birch Creek Flood, June 8, 1964. (Photo: Larry Beckner)