50 years after Teton Dam disaster, Rexburg turns tragedy into a call for service

REXBURG — Jed Platt points to the flood line on display inside Rexburg’s Romance Theater as he recounts the stories of locals who lived through the Teton Dam disaster.

It’s one of numerous businesses in town that was heavily damaged by the flood. On June 5, 1976, the dam — located about 15 miles northeast of Rexburg — collapsed, spilling 80 billion gallons of water into eastern Idaho.

“The muddy, contaminated floodwater caused destruction for over 100 miles. When it hit Rexburg, the wave was approximately 15 feet high and settled at about 5 feet throughout downtown,” a historical fact sheet below the theater’s flood line display reads.

A photo next to the flood line display shows a man standing in the middle of a pile of debris inside the theater days after the flood.

After extensive renovations, the theater — then the Westwood movie theater — resumed normal operations. Less than a year later, a line of people, as shown in another photo on display, stood outside the theater for the premiere of “Star Wars: A New Hope.”

Platt moved to the area with his wife, Jennifer, in 2018. Although he didn’t grow up in Rexburg, he remembers hearing about the flood as a 5-year-old kid in Salt Lake City. During that time, Platt says many people in his hometown boarded yellow buses headed north to help with the cleanup in Rexburg.

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When he started kindergarten that fall, Platt remembers his teacher asking the class what they did over the summer. One of his classmates’ responses has stuck with him through the years.

“There was a girl who said, ‘I saw cows in trees,’” Platt says. “The rest of us picked up our chairs and moved away from the weird girl.”

After moving to Rexburg eight years ago, he learned that the girl was staying with her grandparents in Rexburg at the time. They lived across from Smith Park, and many livestock were stranded in trees after the wall of water pummeled the city.

“My whole childhood finally made sense!” Platt recalls with laughter.

Today, the 55-year-old man is the city’s cultural arts director. In that capacity, he’s tasked with planning events to commemorate the disaster’s 50th anniversary. Among the myriad of memories about the devastation, Platt says the No. 1 thing people remember is the yellow buses filled with people from other communities and states who came to help. It went on for weeks.

Platt recalls hearing a story from one of the helpers who, just before boarding a yellow bus, was instructed to pack two lunches — one for him and one for a friend. The man arrived in Rexburg and went to work, and eventually ate lunch. When they got back to work, he was confused and asked the organizer who would be receiving his second lunch.

“That’s for you,” the organizer said, according to Platt. “Would you mind staying through dinner? The takeaway for me is that sometimes, what you think is helping someone else is really helping yourself. That’s what service does.”

The 50th anniversary of the Teton Dam disaster is happening in conjunction with the America 250 celebration. On that day in 1976, the nation was celebrating its bicentennial. Many had put months of work into designing floats for a parade on Main Street, only for them to be washed away.

After Main Street and the rest of the community were buried under 5 feet of water, the celebration was eclipsed by neighbors and friends shoveling mud and helping those who were affected.

“Weeks after the flood, the street was cleaned up enough to have a parade. A lot of people said that’s what gave them hope,” says Platt. “They found goodness in the tragedy.”

As Platt looks at the flood line inside the Romance Theatre, he says it was service that brought the community together at that time, and he can think of no better way to commemorate the disaster’s 50th anniversary.

“What we need now, like we did then, is people caring for each other,” he says. “Service is what knits us together and makes us a stronger community.”

Connecting flood to flood

As the state of Idaho calls on residents to complete 250,000 acts of service for America’s semiquincentennial, Platt and his wife are launching a similar effort called Flood 50, and they’re urging the community to participate. From June 1-6, there will be a number of events and service opportunities available on the website and through JustServe.

The kickoff event is happening on Monday at Brigham Young University-Idaho. It’s an island dance benefit performance for those affected by flooding in Hawaii. Last month, hundreds of people on the island of Oahu were forced to evacuate amid an oncoming storm. On March 21, CNN reported that the Wahiawa Dam on Oahu’s North Shore was at risk of “collapse or breach.” As of April 4, the dam is still intact, but damage across Hawaii has exceeded $1 billion.

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Jennifer is organizing the benefit performance with Kieki Pouha, a Rigby woman who’s the leader of the dance group.

Jennifer spent a few months on Oahu’s North Shore last year, and that connection motivated her to do something to help. Pouha and her husband are from that area, and Jed says the couple was eager to be involved in this fundraiser.

In 1976, then-Ricks College was a command center to help with flood relief efforts. Jennifer says she’s grateful to be hosting an event at the same place half a century later for people in similar circumstances.

“We started making phone calls and doors just started to open. On Thursday night (March 26), the university told us we could use the Hart gym,” Jennifer says.

Spencer W. Kimball, former president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, flew to Rexburg in a helicopter about a week after the 1976 flood. He addressed members of the community from the Hart auditorium.

“I could weep if it would help. I don’t know that it would. We have flown over the area and feel very sympathetic and understanding. We have come to love you even more for the strength of character you have shown,” Kimball said at the time. “The Lord is with you. Now we’ll move forward and build for the future.”

Jennifer, who is Kimball’s great-great-niece, starts to cry as she thinks about hosting a fundraiser in the same building where her ancestor spoke.

“This is nothing short of a miracle, and we feel that divine help in saying we’re just trying to connect flood to flood,” says Jennifer.

Jennifer says she and her husband have felt embraced in Rexburg more than any community they’ve lived in. It’s a community that values hard work and loving their neighbor, she says, and it was the 1976 flood that helped shape that. She’s asking the community to attend the Monday night event.

More than 40 dancers from five different countries will perform at 7 p.m. Admission is free, but donations are encouraged.

“We’re just two women who love and see a connection,” says Jennifer. “If we gather 3,000 people and everyone gave $10, that’s $30,000 that will help in significant ways.”

“What better way to launch our season of service,” Jed adds. “We know what it’s like to go through something like this, and we also know what it means when someone shows up for you.”

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