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Montana's Worst Natural Disaster: the 1964 Flood on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation

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Montana's Worst Natural Disaster: the 1964 Flood on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation wHa:S - | W | ,: UR:: e e ^et X . x a --E sf ; ss Ek > \tss f et | s - | ,. ,'= 11 | _ , w.. 11 This content downloaded from 161.7.98.62 on Tue, 25 Mar 2014 12:56:03 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions NaturalDisaster The 1964 Flood on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation by Aaron Parrett IN THE SECOND WEEK OF JUNE 1964, the worst naturaldisaster in Montana's recorded history descended on the state in the form of heavy rains that quickly turned once picturesque creeks into raging,mile-wide rivers.Dams, roads, and railroadswashed out, homes and ranches were swept away,and thirty people died. The area affected by the flooding amounted to nearly thirty thousand squaremiles, or roughly 20 percent of the state. By Thursday,June11, President LyndonJohnson had declarednine counties in northwestand north-centralMontana a federaldisaster area. When mopping- up operations ended, damages stood at an estimated at $62 million.' In its official report, the United States Geological mass moved against the mountains in northwestern Survey (USGS) offered a comprehensive analysis of the Montana, where cooler temperatures caused heavy rain. meteorological and hydrological conditions that created Ordinarily,moist air masses originatingfrom the Gulf drop the flooding. The first and most important factor was the their precipitationon the easternslopes of the Rockies. But inordinately heavy precipitation that preceded the storm. this was no ordinaryrainstorm: the air mass spilled over the While precipitation levels were normal from January Continental Divide and generated what the Weather through March,and mountain snow pack was actuallyless Bureau referred to as a "lee-side storm" of nearly than normal through March, heavy snowfall in April unfathomable magnitude. A 1995 USGS report suggested brought mountain snow cover to well above averageby the that such a storm occurs only once every five thousand end of the month. In early May an unusually heavy snow- years.3 storm deposited record snowfall. Also contributing to the In practical terms, the storm's arrivalmeant that places flooding were below-normal temperatures from March to ordinarily reporting modest rainfall logged seemingly May that delayed significant snowmelt. By the end of May apocalyptic amounts for the twenty-four-hour period the nearly saturated soil in the mountains could absorb betweenJune 7 and 8: 8-plus inches in Browning, o1 inches little additional moisture.2 at Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park, 13 inches These conditions combined with an unprecedented southwest of Augusta, and 11inches at Heart Butte. It also weather system that swept into the state in early June. meant majorflooding occurred, especially on the Flathead According to the United States Weather Bureau's official River on the west side of the mountains and the Sun and report, when June began, "moist air from the Gulf of MariasRivers and their tributarieson the east. As the flood- Mexico was spreading north and north-northwest over the ing developed, the media focused its attention on the cities western plains and central Rocky Mountains."Through a of Great Falls and Kalispell, where damage was dramatic phenomenon known as "orographic lifting,"this moist air and easily documented from air and land.4 7. "C I On June 7 and 8,1964, the worst natural disaster in Montana's recorded history occurred as a massive storm dropped heavy rain on late-season mountain snowpack. The resulting flood covered roughly 20 percent of the state, n but the Blackfeet Indian Reservation suffered the brunt of the disaster, with thirty lives lost, hundreds of homes and ranches 111 and the reservation's infrastructure the was the over (p0 inundated, severely damaged. Among property destroyed bridge cD Cut Bank Creek six miles west of Browning, shown at left on June 9. 21 This content downloaded from 161.7.98.62 on Tue, 25 Mar 2014 12:56:03 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions TO DOMINION OFI CANADIA. .-IND,-N. :I .Hoyamily Missio - ~~' mgfT SvA ~~~~~~~`i~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~fE~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~$~O' ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~NOTE:AUA#O~Im~'FIIIIIR ~ ~ r ........--......-. _ CA NA DA a good example of how media coveragefailed to make clear " BLACKFEETINDIAN i GLACIER that the brunt of the disaster hit the reservation. Though NATIONAL CBrei RESERVATION ! PARK MI lCut Bank the article noted "at least 30 were drowned, 100 were miss- Ps She and over were left the brief text made ColumbiaFalls liby ing 1,200 homeless," no mention of the reservationand the accompanying pho- Kalispell tos of Great Falls seemed to that the victims were Conread suggest from the Great Falls area.A Newsweekarticle that appeared O \'. \ BentonFort ~ x . , + ,,Cho a few days later focused on the damage to the reservation, but the accompanying photograph, which had no caption, i\. eValier 7'.rFalls showed a bridge washed out by the Teton River south of :\ Falls Choteau, forty miles away.6 WESThILN& Missoula 1. U.S. ArmyCorps of Engineers,"Report of the Flood of June 1964 in the MissouriRiver Basin in Montana,"in F.C. Bonerand Frank t ques , hwever, the wrt of te damage Upper Stermitz,Floods of June 1964 in NorthwesternMontana, U.S. Geological SurveyWater-Supply Paper 1840-B (Washington, D.C., 1967), 1-4. The Without question, however, the worst of the damage $62 millionis the equivalentof $367 millionin 2003 dollars.Robert C. Sahr'sConsumer Price Index Conversion occurred roughly one hundred miles northwest of Great Factors,oregonstate.edu/dept/ accessed 18,2003. the Blackfeet Indian where pol_sci/fac/Sahr/cv2003.pdf, September Falls on Reservation, "raging 2. Bonerand Stermitz,Floods of une 1964, B13, B5, B6. In an August riversdestroyed 265 homes, 20,000 acres of hayland along 11,2003, telephoneinterview, Boner noted, "When you haverainfall on of are a situation." the creeks, two large dams,... irrigationfacilities on which top existingmelting snow, you facing potentialflooding In 1964 an rainfell on late-seasonsnowpack. acres of barns earlyJune unusuallyheavy 37,000 cropland depended, corrals, sheds, 3. Ibid.,B18; Charles Parrett, "Regionalization of AnnualPrecipitation and livestock, all bridges and much of the Reservationroad Maximain Montana,"in Associationof StateDam SafetyOfficials 1995 Annual 654. system, and, most tragic of all, claimed all the casualties of ConferenceProceedings (Lexington, Ky., 1995), 4. Bonerand Stermitz, Floods ofjune 1964,10, B29-B45. the the entire flood As Bob an Although area, thirty lives." Norris, damat HungryHorse Reservoir controlled flooding on the SouthFork of announcer for Shelby radio station KSEN, put it: "Tragedy theFlathead, the "Flathead River upstream from Flathead Lake underwent themost severe of modemtimes. All main from was to be found everywhere, but if any single segment of flooding bridgesupstream ColumbiaFalls were washed out or renderedunusable." Ibid., B66-67. the was hit and hit it was the Blackfeet population hardest, 5. Helen West, Flood: The Story of the 1964 BlackfeetDisaster Indians on the Reservation."5 (Kalispell,Mont., 1970), 4-5; Bob Norris,sound recordingof KSEN radio n.d. [June Oral 79, MontanaHistorical The way the flooding affected the BlackfeetReservation broadcast, 1964], History Archives,Helena. the the the event an Society versus way public perceived exposes 6. Life, June 19, 1964, 38-39; "Montana:'The Dam is Busted,"' interestingdisparity. A two-page photo spread in Life offers Newsweek,June22,1964,30-31. 22 This content downloaded from 161.7.98.62 on Tue, 25 Mar 2014 12:56:03 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SUMMER 2004 O AARON PARRETT On the west side of the divide, the Hungry Horse News storage opened at the local fairgrounds.Given that the Sun concentrated its coverage on the extensive damage to areas River did not crest until 12:45A.M. Wednesday, the biggest around Kalispell and Columbia Falls. Local newspaper- difference between the flood's effect on the Blackfeet and man Mel Ruder even won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage Great Falls residents was in the availability of advance of the flooding. But aside from its normal reprinting of warning. Whereas many reservationresidents had no time John Tatsey's column from the reservation's paper, the to plan an escape, citizens in GreatFalls had at least twenty- Browning Glacier Reporter,the Hungry Horse News made four hours to vacate their properties and move their posses- no mention of the reservationdamage in the weeks follow- sions to higher ground.8 ing the flood. The Browning The morning paper, the Glacier Reporter provided GreatFalls Tribune,began the best coverage of the its flood coverage on Tues- events on the reservation, day,June 9, with a lead arti- but its usefulness as a pri- cle that focused on the local mary news source was lim- threat. This article mistak- ited by its small circulation enly attributed the status of and weekly publication "chief troublemaker"to the schedule. The issue for the Sun River rather than to the week of the flood came out tributaries of the Marias, -'8 t ' a>-. three days after the worst confusing readers about the had passed.7 flood's geography and re- The neglect of the flood's inforcing the notion that the effects on the Blackfeet Res- Sun River was responsible ervation is a result of both for the deaths announced by was on the the media's to mar- Although flooding widespread reservation, the headline "Dam-Buster tendency tlhemost effects were seen on the two cultures devastating Floods Kill at Least Fear- ginalize minority streams where dams failed: Two Medicine and 8; of the ful Residents Evacuate." A and the contingencies Birch Creeks. Blackfeet artist Gary Schildt later drew event itself. For a few sidebar described days, his interpretation of these disasters, Flooding River, front-page the reservation (already iso- to illustrate Helen B. West's Flood: The Story of the "dam-busting floods lated and remote)was almost the 1964 Blackfeet Disaster (p.
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