Lynn & Jewell Cook Creekside

Lynn & Jewell Cook
Creekside, St. George, UT

Interview with Douglas D. Alder in Highland, UT
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Alder: When did you buy this place?

Jule: We bought this place last April. This old place was so special. We had gone all over town trying to find a place and nothing felt right and we found this place is Creekside – we thought it was so pleasant and discovered the very last house in the cul de sac had a ‘for sale’ sign on it. We just fell in love with it ... it was just the perfect spot for us.

Alder: Did you happen to look out into the .... river?

Jule: It was called a creek – because we couldn’t imagine it could ever be problem?

Alder: Was the park down below your area?

Lynn: It was north of us. You could look out from our side and it looked over into the park and swimming pool.

Alder: So you are six or seven houses away from the swimming pool?

Lynn: Two, depending on how you count. But there is a direct path to the park.

Alder: You didn’t have any discussions about the river?

Jule: Ken Lamson, the former owner of the house, told Lynn the river had come up quite high in 1985, but it hadn’t stayed up very long so it wasn’t a real problem.

Lynn: They brought a lot of rock and stuff in it after that, which was fine, until the river bed changed and undercut everything and

Jule: Apparently flooding wasn't a real concern of Mr. Lamson. He had created a beautiful yard ... it was just beautiful!

Alder: So when did you first have concerns? Were you down there when things started? Did people call you?

Lynn: People who have some things up here had a son who moved down there (St. George) he got a little nervous and went over to check it and called us on Monday morning.

Alder: How long did it take you to get there?

Lynn: Two and a half hours.

Jule: Two and a half anxious hours. We were very anxious to get there. We walked around the back and saw how the river was cutting it – it was breathtaking.

Alder: Tell us your understanding of what happened. How did the river get over there?

Lynn: I think the water washed the bridge out on the west side and ate away the Northwest bank and then it came down so far and made a big bend and shot the river right at us. Between the trees and debris getting it plugged up it caused the river to eat the bank away in different areas because of all the debris.

Jule: We watched it all night – we stayed in the home Monday night and really thought we were out of harms way.

Alder: Was anyone around at that time?

Jule: No, the ward had been there with sandbags in case the water got any higher. My husband is a fireman, so he’s pretty experienced and has a lot of common sense in things like that. We watched it and didn’t do anything else – we watched the direction of the river all day, the debris and the trees that had fallen in it. Lynn concern was that it was being directed more this way and he’d walk down to check underneath the corner of our lot.

Alder: So what’s happening Tuesday? You are describing it. What about the neighbors, what about the fire department and others?

Lynn: The fire department wasn’t called until I told Bob Dutton and told him we could see the big rocks rolling away into the river, that it was undercutting below. When those rocks started to go then the property. From the time the rocks left it was only thirty minutes until we were out of the house ... that was about 2:30 p.m. Bob thought he ought to call the fire department and in a way I wish he had not called because it would have given us a little more time to get things out. They shut us down a little early and it wouldn’t let us go out and see how much the river was cutting under. We only had about 15 or 20 minutes to get everything out of the house we could get out. Once we had moved our stuff into the next house then we had two houses that had to be evacuated. We moved it into the Jenkins. Then we moved both of those houses into Bob’s. And then we had to move all three out.

Alder: So you had 15 minutes to move your things out – who helped you moved it out?

Jule: It was like we had a little angel there. Because Lynn had said we were in trouble, we better get what we can out. We called a friend that lived there to come help, turned around and here was this sweet Dan Westwood that had called us to come down and he had about six boys from their ward and another adult and they had that house cleaned out in 10-15 minutes at the most.

Jule: We got our refrigerator and washer and dryer. We got our furniture – we just didn’t get anything in the line of dishes or bedding or things in the closets. When there isn’t any time, there just aren’t any boxes to pack dishes in. We were fortunate to get our furniture. We had about ten people who were helping us pull things out.

Alder: So how many houses ended up going?

Lynn: There were seven homes in there that either partially or totally. Four totally and three partially. Ours was the first to go.

Alder: And the land with it? And now you have a mortgage on nothing.

Jule: yes, and probably taxes to pay right now. Our property is probably right where the river has taken out.

Lynn: About 150 feet or more from where it was right there.

Jule: Amazing! It’s amazing that little tiny creek has now eaten out about a 300 foot, huge river bed. Unbelievable what that can do.

Alder: You appear to be fairly calm and reflective on this ... have you been tearing out hair for days or are you ...

Lynn: If you can’t do anything about it, there’s no use worrying about it. That’s a fact. A lot of things in life come along and you don’t get to pick which ones happen to you. If you can’t change it, then you just have to go on and that’s what we’re doing.

Jule: I think the think the reality of what’s happened has finally sunk in. Last night I kind of had an emotional night. I felt really bad that we lost that beautiful little home. Your home has a heart and I think every time we would go there I would be just tickled that we were here. We would leave I’d say “we’ll be back soon.” It’s like a living thing to me and to see it break and be gone.

Lynn: The yard was very living too – it was a beautiful yard.

Jule: We had probably twenty-five rose bushes and thirty trees ... It just bloomed all the time.

Jule: I called her when we got home and we both cried. I said, “Thank you so much for creating such a beautiful place that we enjoyed so very much.” They are very nice people. But it was such a peaceful little area and the people down there are so sweet and kind.

When I said on TV that it had been a little bit of heaven, I meant that.

Alder: Your house was on TV?

Jule: Yes. I can’t tell you exactly, but we watched on the noon news about the home in Santa Clara that was being undercut. It was probably the first one to drop into the river – someone was standing on the other side of our section and got a picture of our house and it was on the news. It showed ours and then the one next door and then Charlotte’s. We had a big awning that went across the back and it had dropped down across the summer house so you couldn’t see any windows and it when it broke the yellow insulation exploded and went everywhere. Whenever I’d say to somebody – ‘Ours is the one with all the yellow insulation going out.’

Alder: So you stood there and watched it?

Jule: It was the most heart wrenching. All that noise, the sound of those houses cracking and falling. Oh, it was horrible. You see things like that on the news or on TV or something but to actually stand there and see something like that and hear it and smell it and realize it’s yours. It’s yours that’s falling in and you’re watching the little things you have sitting in the windows that you can’t go get and I don’t know. My Dad was in Beaver Dam, my mother has been gone for seven years, and when we moved down here Daddy was so tickled with our home that he cleaned his whole house out down there and brought everything up to me. There were these boxes with cute dishes in them and a note “Mom wants you to have this in your home.”

Alder: Now there’s a lot of damage down there?

Jule: Yes there was. He’s alright. He’s on the first area that was developed there so he was fine. They were up high next to the golf course and the road. Anyway, so that was hear breaking to me to have my Mom’s things. This cupboard right here was one of them and was filled with my Mom’s crystal and some old antique dishes that had been in the family for years. They were taken out of the home and packed but I don’t know if they were moved out of Chases home anywhere else.

Alder: Three months from now you will raise the question of ‘now what do we do?’

Lynn: I really want a home down there. It’s just whether we can take what we owe on this one and tack it on top of another home or whatever. That’s going to be the hard part.

Alder: We want you down there very much. We appreciate every Washington County tax payer.

Jule: In a real way we got to know our neighbors down there ... but they offered their homes, they offered to let us stay there – We are very drawn back to Creekside. I think if there was another home for sale in there we’d be tempted to go back. Somebody asked if we would actually live that close to the river again and we said we probably would. We had some friends that moved down there. ... the oldest son that you met? He has some very good friends from high school that moved down there this past year, we go back a long ways. We had a daughter, Jana, who died of bone cancer when she was 19. We’ve kind of had a few hurdles to jump in life and we’ve learned to move on and try to be positive. But her missionary that was out at the time she past away, her sister lives down there and they are really good friends. We’ve had so many people call, the ward and the stake presidency, they have just been wonderful. Very, very special people down there.