Beverly Palmer Shadow Creek

Beverly Palmer
Shadow Creek, St. George, UT

Interview with Douglas D. Alder

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Today is January 21^st , 2005. I’m Doug Alder and I’m here with Beverly Palmer.

Alder: So, now, Beverly, your place was located where?

Beverly: In Shadow Creek.

Alder: Aha, I know Shadow Creek. My brother-in-law, Richard Raiser, lives right in there. How long have you had that place?

Beverly: About ten-and-a-half years.

Beverly: I’ve written several things. The first thing that I remember about this whole flood was going to church that Sunday, January 9^th. I crossed the bridge on Valley View, as I always do when going to church. I was in there three hours. Before I went in there, I noticed that the river was high, but it wasn’t over the road or anything. When I came out in three hours, I couldn’t go back that same way over the bridge because they were blocking it because the water was going over the bridge. But I didn’t feel concerned about that at all because it’s done that a lot of times, and you just don’t pay attention to it. Usually the city had road equipment out there to keep that bridge clear so it could go through it. This time I don’t think they did, and I don’t know if it was because it was Sunday, or not, but they usually had heavy equipment out there to get the debris off, just in case.

The river was running real fast by this time. I was real loud, even from my house, which was probably at least a hundred yards back from it. It was running real loud; you couldn’t help but hear it. By Monday morning, I think, it had crested, and I could see the river from my kitchen and bedroom windows. Just by sitting at the kitchen window, I could see the top of the river over there. Some of the neighbors and I went to look at the river, and I took a lot of pictures. The water coming down the creek was tearing the tamarack bushes out by the roots and sending them the water, (as well as) logs and other debris. Some of the logs were really quite good-sized and they were just roaring down that river. The banks would crack; you could stand there on this flood plain and watch and the cracks would just come along the river. I said that it looked like a cake that cracked. All of a sudden, the (cracks would) slump down into the river. A pretty good sized rock was sitting back here and we wondered how long (it would be there. We thought that) we would come down tomorrow and see it. Instead, in about ten minutes, it had slumped off and it was in the river. The river was high on the opposite bank. We could really see it over there. The river seemed to kind of split and made an island in the middle. There was this big cottonwood tree out there. You could see it was chiseling away at the roots. It dug until the roots were exposed. The tree did go down. I didn’t see it go down, but I got some pictures of it before it did, which was a shame because it was a nice tree. Looking north we could see that the park at… what is it?

Alder: Mathis Park?

BP: No, I can’t think of the name of it, but that was flooded. It was just flooded and all of the equipment and everything in there was under –well the equipment was high, so it wasn’t under, but it was all wet and the water was all over the park. By this time the river was really widening out. By Tuesday afternoon, I looked out toward the river and I couldn’t see it running from the house so I thought, “Well, the river’s probably down and this is probably over with, so we don’t have to worry.” So, I decided to take my nap, and in a real few minutes my daughter and granddaughters came running in and said, “Grandma, come see the house coming down the river!” I ran out there, but the house --it might have been a roof, anyway, it was out of sight. I couldn’t see it. We stood there looking and I said, “Where’s the flood plain?” It had just eaten up so it was really getting alarmingly close to our (house). There was a little thing of small rocks there, and you could see that that was not going to hold very well. [She pauses.] So, I said, “Where’s the flood plain,” and it had receded really bad. What I had thought was the river going down --I thought that it had receded and everything was over, and instead of that, it was cutting deeper and deeper and widening, so it was definitely still there. It was going deeper into the sandy banks.

All of this was happening to this stream that was usually three or four feet wide and four to five inches deep that quietly went down its way. You could walk over it, and it went down between the banks. There was a lot of tamarack down there. As we stood deciding what to do and all, one of the granddaughters came in saying there were a lot of people out in the street emptying houses, taking the things out of the neighbors houses and putting them across the street. So, all of a sudden, about twenty people, a lot from the Ward and some others came into the house and started gathering things and took them out across the street and into the neighbor’s garage. Luckily some of these garages looked better than mine and they had room to put things in. When you don’t have very much time, it’s hard to decide what to grab, so I grabbed my family histories and my genealogy that I could get and some pictures. Then somebody said we only had ten minutes to get out of there or some such thing. They got the major items out, the big furniture and most of the things out.

Alder: How about your clothes?

BP: Well, it’s funny, after all was said and done that day, I ended up with what I had on –jeans, a shirt, and shoes and socks. That’s all that I ended up having with me. I took some jeans –I thought, “Well, I’ve got to have something to wear,” so I grabbed them; I don’t know where they are to this day. They’re somewhere. I grabbed my church clothes, and I thought, “Well, I’ve got to have these,” so I got them and one pair of shoes other than these. Other than that, there I was with one set of clothes to wear. So then, everybody was putting things into boxes and bags and wastebaskets. I’ll never get them all straightened out, but I was so happy to have them out of there.

Then all of those workers moved down to the next house. Before long, the police started in there by then, I’m sure. They had put their yellow tapes up not to cross the police line. We couldn’t even go back into the houses. Like I said, those two were really badly undercut. Several people were real nice and invited me to stay in their homes until I got settled again. I didn’t even know this one lady, and she gave me her phone number and name, and she was from Blake’s homes over there. Wednesday, I didn’t go back, I don’t think. Thursday, I went back because to clean or get the food out of my refrigerator. I was afraid it would be spoiled. Here was a poster on my door that said that I had to have a fireman go in with me. I couldn’t the house without a fireman. So I called the fire department, and the poor things were so spread out. I had to wait quite awhile, and they said, “Well, you’re not going to clean any of the house out are you?” I said, “No, just my fridge.” So, they got there just about dusk and he said, “Well, we have lights.” So one of these firemen went in with me and a bright light so I could see to clean out my refrigerator, get the food out of that and throw 99% away. Then I grabbed a few quilts that my mother had made that I didn’t want to leave in the house. Anytime I wanted to go in the house, I had to have a fireman go in. But they were real cooperative, and the policemen were too. They were all very nice, even though they were (busy). Especially the firemen were awful busy.

The Church had told me that they were going to get between fifty and one hundred and fifty people over there to get the things out of all of those garages and put them somewhere, and I guess Thursday, I must have been taken over to see some homes to see if I could rent one temporarily. I didn’t like the ones I saw, and they were expensive.

Alder: What’s the condition of your house now at this point? When they were about to take the stuff out of the garages, was your house undermined?

Beverly: No. It jutted out in the back about to the back of my garden, which was probably fifteen or twenty feet out there, and then it went straight down, and I mean really straight down.

Alder: So the house is standing.

Beverly: Yes, the house is okay. So they will be able to shore it up, they said, without as much trouble as the two that are undermined over there.

Alder: Have they decided when they’re going to let you move in?

Beverly: I asked the fireman yesterday and he said, no, I couldn’t move back in until it was shored up.

Alder: So it could be a couple of months.

Beverly: Yeah, it’s hard to tell. So meanwhile, the Church has helped me, and I have rented a house. They took the stuff out on Saturday with all of these people. There were oodles of them in the neighborhood, and somebody came and said, “You have eight people at your disposal.” [She laughs.] I don’t know what I did. Like my son said, I looked like I was spaced out, and I said, “Well, it’s because I was.” I felt like my head was full of air or something. I just kind of can’t think. Anyway, they got all of this stuff packed and put it down into a couple of storage big units.

Then somebody brought sandwiches for everybody and there was a lot of bottled water. One thing that was kind of interesting… while we were there, here came all of these police cars. The mayor and the city council had sent these men down there with root beer floats because they said that we couldn’t go and join in Heritage Days, so they sent all of these people down with root beer floats, so we all got root beer floats, which kind of helped. [Laughter]

Now I’m just waiting until they get things (figured out). I don’t know. They said something about somebody was having a study, and you know how studies are. The City said it might be another month or two before that even gets done. Then while we were there, somebody handed us a thing that we had to get permits to do anything with our property, so I don’t know when I’m going to get back in. So I’m just going to move into a rental and sit it out, I guess. [She pauses and takes a deep breath.] You’ve probably heard lots of horrible stories. Mine isn’t nearly as horrible as a lot, thank goodness.

Alder: Yes, you’re fortunate.

BP: Yes, I am.