| Interviews | |
| It rained like, I'd say probably 40 days. You know how they used to say like Noah's Ark was? Well, that's about how it rained. It rained almost 40 days, one day right after the other. It just never did stop. It just kept raining. |  Lydia Porubsky |
| When people think of the flood of 51, they think primarily of the major storms that occurred from the 9th to the 13th of July. But for two and a half months previous to that there were a number of storm events which created heavier than normal rainfall over eastern Kansas and western Missouri. And in fact, in the month of June, there were some locations in Kansas that experienced two to three times their normal monthly rainfall. And some locations experienced as much rain during that 2 1/2 month period as they normally do over the entire year. |  Steve Predmore |
| The main flood event, the one that people think of in July of 51 began on July 9th. And from the 9th to the 13th, over about a 72 hour period of time, anywhere from 5 to 17 inches of rain fell across portions of eastern Kansas and western Missouri. And because the ground was fairly saturated from 2 1/2 months of above normal rainfall, the water had no way to infiltrate the ground, and the majority of that ran off directly into the streams. And it created a flood of a magnitude that people could not have even imagine could occur. | |
| In the early 1950s we saw a series of drought years with the exception of the 51 flood, the months of the flood.... And, in fact, in early 1951 we saw people in churches praying for rain for the crops coming on...... Things looked really good when the rains finally started. Problem was they never stopped. |  Roy Bird |
| I wanted to kind of focus in on how things really were and it it was something that is more of a historical picture than anything else. The river bridge there was the pinpoint of getting people out of north Lawrence and if it hadn't been for that they'd had to fight that current. They went over there and there were boats coming in there all the time, people getting out, trucks pulling in trying to haul stuff. Boats running around here and there and people not knowing for sure what to do. Not knowing what's going to happen. Not knowing where they was going to stay. |  Paul Penny |
| You could go out there and there was livestock and horse or two and cows and sheep and pigs. And they was a barn come down there that had a bunch of chickens on the roof. Course that disintegrated when it hit the bridge and the chickens tried to make it and they couldn't make it. They went in the water. Boy, they took off flying and they went in the water and they never made it to shore. | |
| My folks lived here. They said, "just come on over here". "It never got here in 1903 probably won't get here again." Next day it's higher than the yard. That's when the kids took over more or less went out and waving at a plane going over & they circled round and come back, dropped a pontoon boat I guess right out here in the yard here. | |
| They knew there would NOT be a flood. Fact, I was here all night the night of the 12th and I was in constant touch every hour with the Corps of Engineers and they kept tellin' me there would not be a flood. But along, I don't know, 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning, I called then em and said, "you better get somebody down here and look at this thing, cause it's coming' out". |  Jay Dillingham |
| You think a hog can't swim, but the tide was so swift, they didn't have any trouble swimming . And some of those hogs came in the front door of this building. The flood had washed the doors off. We found em as high as the 5th floor in this building. You think a hog can't climb steps, but they can. | |
| My boss, W. G. Sanders, he started there in 1898, he was standing there, I can see him yet, he was sort of senile and he was sweeping the floor and I said, "now what are we gonna do about these pianos?" He said, "just leave em there. It's never come in here before and it can't come in now." It was comin' in our back door right then. |  Walter Butler |
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Paralyzed it. Because you couldn't buy groceries. You couldn't buy anything. There wasn't any
water. There wasn't any electricity. There wasn't telephone. There wasn't any gas. We were just completely
out of the picture.
...and the smell was somethin else. Dead fish, dead rats, mice. Course you want to remember that this flood also brought up all the rats out of.... You see at that time the city dump was on East 1st street and when that flood came up, that's the first place it floods and those rats out of that thing were just enormous, everywhere. Rats and mice. |
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| Lots and lots of damage. Just huge amounts. You can't believe how much property damage there was. I mean virtually everything in Topeka north of the river and confined within in that area north Topeka, but there was lots of property damage even in the Oakland area which in the 1903 flood didn't get any water in it. But... in the the 51 flood, the water was, well, right up to the canopies on stores on N Kansas Ave so of course they were all washed out and the damage was just tremendous. |  Harold Warswick |
| I fact, I went through there 3 or 4 days after the water had pretty well gone down. Couldn't get anything in there. You just had to walk so I took a load of stuff with me, cameras and gear and went through there and just walked from the river clear out to the cloverleaf north of town. just shooting people who were starting to get back in and the most notable one of those was the house on N Kansas Ave bout around the 1200 block. There was people just laughing their heads off, sounded like they were having a really good time and yet there was mud everywhere so I wound my way up to there and their house was up on a couple steps & even up on a ledge above that and when I got there there was a man and woman they were.. they made a board with a handle on it and he was.. had a rope around that and she was handling that. They were sluicing the mud out of their house and just laughin like they were havin a good time | |