Teton Dam break special report, 1976 June 06

Item — video: 1

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

11:00.

Louise Degn's note: On Saturday, 05 June 1976, I was working in the newsroom and received a telephone call from a woman saying she had relatives in Idaho and heard the Teton Dam had broken. I had no idea what or where that was so I got out an Idaho map and determined what county that was in and called the sheriff's office. The officer who answered said, yes, there was a small break in the dam but it was not serious. I put that sound bite on KSL Radio news. Shortly -- I can't recall how we knew -- we discovered it was more serious so we decided to go up. Bob Greenwell, the photographer, was also a pilot, so he rented a small plane and we flew to Idaho landing in a cornfield. We thumbed our way around the area, interviewing people and shooting film of the flood. We waded into one street, not knowing where we were, and shouted to a man, "What street is this?" "Main Street," he answered., so that's where I did my stand-up. Taking off in the plane on the cornfield dirt road was harrowing. Bob later told me that we cleared a fence at the end of the field by just feet. We flew around the area and using an aviation map I could pinpoint exact towns that were under water and those that were safe. That type of exact information is crucial to people with loved ones in the area and the very information that is often lacking in the initial news reports of disasters. We got back to the station by 10 p.m., splattered in mud and soaked with floodwater and I went on the air with a report, the only Utah station to have original on-the-ground pictures. The people we interviewed that day were the ones we did follow-up reports with at six months and two years.

Dates

1976 June 06

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