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EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the fifth in a series of stories highlighting the 50th anniversary of the Teton Dam Disaster.
ROBERTS — “When the flood took the valley, Rexburg had the cameras and Roberts had a Texaco lot.”
Those words — inspired by an oral history about the Teton Dam Disaster — are the lyrics to a new song. It’s one of 17 new tracks on an album commemorating the flood’s 50th anniversary. The lyrics reference the national media attention given to Rexburg at the time, while Roberts — a much smaller community 25 miles to the southwest — was ignored and forgotten, despite having more lasting damage.
Upon hearing the news of the dam’s collapse, hundreds sought the only dry ground in town. Texaco, the city’s only gas station, sat above the flood plain and was unaffected. About 500 people were stranded there for days because Roberts was placed under martial law.
Just before noon on June 5, 1976, the Teton Dam — ironically built to help with flood mitigation — collapsed, spilling 80 billion gallons of water into east Idaho. Not only was the city of Rexburg buried under 5 feet of water, but 11 people and about 13,000 head of livestock were also killed. Beyond that, about 3,000 homes and tens of thousands of acres of land were destroyed or heavily damaged.
Cleanup took months and cost over $2 billion — more than $11 billion in today’s dollars. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the agency that built the dam, spent the next 11 years compensating those who were affected.
In a June 1977 interview, then-Roberts Mayor McKean “Mick” Laird recalled what happened that day. When the news of the dam failure broke, locals were not concerned.
“We were just like everybody else. Everybody here said, ‘Aw, it won’t flood Roberts. The railroad’ll stop it,” Laird recalled.
But several hours later, a wall of water washed away railroad tracks, homes and buildings in Rexburg and Sugar City. Laird began warning people in his hometown to evacuate.
Although some resisted the warning, a giant wave eventually hit Roberts. It washed over the tracks around 4:15 the next morning.
“It was just a big bunch of water coming at you,” Laird said. “I saw water hit (some) cows and I could hear them beller. They were swimming … and (a farmer) lost his whole calf crop.”
When everything settled, Roberts sat under 4 feet of water. Laird rode a boat through town to survey the damage. He recalled seeing a group of people gathered in the Texaco lot.
“The expressions on their face was enough for me. I don’t ever want to see anything like that again,” he said.
Stranded at the Texaco lot
Elaine Robinson, who lived on a 1,000-acre spread outside of town, was unaffected by the flood but was called upon to help.
She and others with whom she served in her ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gathered bread and canned goods. They spent most of the day making sandwiches for those at the Texaco lot. In a July 1977 interview, she described seeing people standing there in their pajamas. The flood had taken them by surprise. Many of them doubted Roberts would be affected. By the time the water arrived, it was too late and all they had left were the clothes on their back and a few belongings they kept in their vehicle or camper.
Some of the women were crying, and many in the group were now hungry and desperate.
“There we were, in 90-degree weather. (There were) mosquitoes like you wouldn’t believe … and no toilets (or) soap and water to wash your hands,” Robinson said at the time. “We were trying to feed 500 people on nothing and … nobody knew that Roberts was hit. I stayed there till about 11:00 that night until they finally had to tell people to go somewhere and (get some sleep).”
In an era before cellphones, Robinson said it was difficult to account for those who needed help. Many were unsure whether family members in neighboring communities were dead or alive, and there was no way to call for outside help.
Days later the Civil Defense brought in radios to help with communication, and the American Red Cross eventually came as well.
As a Red Cross volunteer, Robinson helped with additional relief efforts. Roberts Junior High — now the Mustang Events Center — eventually became the command center. Food and clothes were shipped in from Deseret Industries. Robinson remembered washing clothes at the school and helping to distribute food and clothing to locals. She helped make a detailed filing system to keep track of everyone.
About a week after the flood, Latter-Day Saint Church President Spencer W. Kimball visited Rexburg and spoke to community members from the Hart Auditorium at Ricks College. Similarly, another church leader, Theodore M. Burton, was sent to look over the damage in Roberts and deliver messages of hope and support.
“Elder Burton was shocked at the destruction the flood had caused,” Robinson wrote in her personal history. “Someone told him about our file system, (and) he asked to see it. He was very impressed at how we were able to take care of so many people.”
Officials spent weeks pumping water and cleaning up. Laird said it took about a month and a half before people could move back into their homes. His home, which was only six months old at the time, had about 2 inches of silt in the carpeting and everywhere else. It was deemed a total loss.
That was the case for many other buildings in town. Robinson, now 85, still remembers the awful smell of the mud caked into the floor of the church building. It was rebuilt over the next year. For Robinson, the inability to meet for worship services is one of her most prominent memories.
Several other places of worship — a Catholic and a Baptist church — were also heavily damaged.
Today, Robinson is one of the few remaining people in Roberts who lived through the Teton Dam collapse. The building where Texaco was housed is now a Phillips 66 gas station on the east side of Interstate 15. Her response to those in need that day is highlighted in a song called “Roberts had a Texaco Lot,” featured on the new Teton Dam album project.
“Two old campers made sandwiches just the way good neighbors do,” the song says. “No Red Cross on Sunday, no rescue headline shot. Just a woman running all day long, giving every ounce she’s got.”
Songwriter Richard Robison calls Robinson a hero, but she disagrees, telling EastIdahoNews.com that she didn’t know what she was doing at the time.
Although it was a unifying experience to help the community through an uncertain and difficult tragedy, Robinson says it was a heavy burden that was hard for her to deal with. The memory of leaving her young children at home for several weeks and seeing so many people’s lives upended is not an experience she wants to repeat.
“It still causes a bit of anxiety for me (to recall it),” Robinson says.
Listen to the song below.
A lasting impact
The devastation caused by the Teton Dam flood made national headlines, and Rexburg was featured prominently in many news stories. But news coverage of the damage in Roberts was nonexistent.
It’s hard to say why Roberts was seemingly forgotten, but current Mayor BJ Berlin says that lack of communication and the fact that Roberts is a smaller community probably played a role.
“Roberts tends to like to take care of itself,” says Berlin. “So they were probably OK with it in the beginning.”
What was more upsetting to locals was the fact that it took so long for outside agencies to respond.
More than 20 years later, another disastrous flood throughout east Idaho, made Roberts the center of media attention. The 1997 flood was caused by heavy rain and the rapid melting of record snowpack in the mountains. Although water never crossed the tracks into Roberts, there was widespread impact throughout the area, including east of the tracks on the outskirts of town.
“East of the tracks, everybody who got flooded (as a result of the Teton Dam failure) got flooded again,” says Berlin.
The National Guard kept people out of Roberts, but the city became a staging area for state agencies and the media. That year, Roberts — like Rexburg in 1976 — received national attention, despite having far less damage than the Teton Dam flood.
“It must’ve been a slow news cycle nationally because there were network vans here,” Berlin recalls. “In ’97, my family from all over the country was calling because they saw us on the news. The contrast (of the media coverage) is interesting.”
Half a century after the Teton Dam collapse, Berlin says the 1976 disaster has had a lasting impact on the community. It was what he calls “the final nail” in a series of unfortunate events, and the city has never fully recovered.
“Interstate 15 came through in the mid 1960s and the highway used to go right through the center of town. In the late 1960s, the high school closed, and then in the 70s, we had a huge flood,” Berlin explains. “That’s a lot of hard knocks for a small town.”
Many of the amenities that were lost in the flood have never returned, but locals are still proud to call it home.
Berlin says there aren’t any plans to commemorate the Teton Dam disaster in Roberts because most of the people who lived through it are now dead. But for the current generation, Berlin says it’s an important moment in history that’s worth remembering.
“We’ve had a lot of people move here from other places, and they probably don’t even know about the Teton flood. Maybe we should do something about that,” says Berlin.
WATCH OUR INTERVIEW WITH BERLIN IN THE VIDEO ABOVE.
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