Community Recollections of the 1965 Flood in Kinsley, Kansas

Recorded on January 23 & 24, 2014

Kinsley United Methodist Church, 803 Marsh Avenue, Kinsley, Kansas 67547

Conducted by the Kinsley Library, 208 E. 8th St., Kinsley, Kansas 67547

Recorded by Gizmo Pictures, 112 SE 8th Ave, Topeka, KS 66603

As part of the Kansas Humanities Council, Turning Points: Stories of Change

“Navigating Rough Waters” segment

Interviewer: Joan Weaver, Director of the Kinsley Public Library

Film production crew: Jeff Carson, Brian Broeckelman, MacGregor Greenlee

Transcriber: Cara Vanderree

Interviewees: 1. Kenny Dupree Page 1 8. Virginia Gleason Page 23

2. Doug Burr Page 6 9. Charles Schmitt Page 26

3. Judi McKinney Page 10 10. Marsha Bagby Page 29

4. Jay Dill Page 12 11. Harold Burkhart Page 35

5. John Ploger Page 15 12. Susan Mathes Page 37

6. W. J. (Jim) Mowrey Page 18 13. Marvin Ryan Page 39

7. Nancy Weidenheimer Page 21 14. Buford Brodbeck Page 42

1. KENNETH DUPREE

Joan: Kenny, can you tell us about the 1940 flood?

Kenny: I’m Kenneth Dupree, and I can tell you about the 1940 flood; I was in it. I was working for

George Eslinger, and I was sowing wheat. Clouds from the west just kept coming up and getting worse

and worse. All afternoon I watched it, and then it started to rain at probably 6:00 in the evening. I

parked the drills and tractor on a hill and got to town. After that, it just rained hard. We didn’t know it

was cloud bursting. Out there at Paul Heit’s, they said they got 17 inches of rain, from Ardell, that’s

about a mile south. All that country was underwater. When I came home, I went on to bed. Buss

Martin was walking down the street (my nickname was “Bus”) and he hollered, “Bus, Bus! We’re in a

flood!” Well, when I got up, all I could see was my shoes floating in the water. I went over to where

my mother’s bed was and turned the light on. If it hadn’t been for putting the electricity in in ‘33, my

dad got an army pension and he hired a man to put the electricity from the roof down, but he didn’t go

(all the way) down, so the electricity wires were above, otherwise I’d a got killed when I turned that

electricity on!

The water was already a foot deep in the house. So I called my brother (Arthur Dupree), he was

a drayman here in town, and told him we were in a flood and he’d better get my mother out (Clara May

Dupree). My dad (John Dupree) had left my mother and took my sister with him, so we had a woman

to take care of my mother through the day. I took care of her at night. She was bedfast for 16 years. So

he said, “Are you drunk?” And I said, “No, I’m not drunk; you get your butt down here!” I went down

to Skeet Winchester (John Walter Winchester) and phoned, that was two houses away. So he came and

went and got a stretcher somewhere and to this day I don’t know where he got the stretcher. But Skeet

Winchester and Lewis Winchester and Earl (Winchester) and myself and my brother loaded her on a

flatbed truck and took her to a lady to take care of her. To this day, I don’t know how he found out

where to take her. But Skeet and one of his boys took her with my brother to this home. So me and

Lewis Winchester went out to the barn about a block away. I’ll never forget it, there were four hogs

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hanging onto the manger with their feet! So me and old Lewis grabbed the hogs by the ear and the tail

and we floated them to one of our bedrooms and we stuck them in there and went back and got three

more. Them old hogs didn’t have nothing to eat all that day. It wasn’t much of a house; we had tile on

the side of the house, that old wood stuff, and them old hogs ate it all up! So my brother seen Burt

Lewis and Buck (Lewis) and they got the poor hogs and got rid of the hogs.

I was down to my brother’s, and his wife (Marie) and me wasn’t going to get along, so I was

seeing Mildred (Mildred Winters, Kenny’s wife to be). I went and started going with my wife, and she

asked her mother (Ora Winters) if I could rent a room there. So I rented a room for $5 a week. I didn’t

eat breakfast; I ate dinner with George Eslinger and I didn’t eat supper for two years. I gave my mother

$10 a week by the county commissioners’ request. I shouldn’t have done it because I was too young.

That left me $3 a week by the time I paid my room and board. So I remember that flood very well. All

my life, I can’t get it out of my mind. I’ll always remember that water coming through my floor and

what shoes I owned was floating down with the water! I’ll tell you, it was bad.

Clyde Moon had cattle (milk cow)-in the stream, and he had a terrible time getting the cows out

of the stream before the water came in. But he got them out finally. That’s what I remember on that end

of town. But Buford (Brodbeck) there could tell you how bad it was. He remembers. I know he does.

That’s what I remember about the flood.

Joan: Okay, how about 1965?

Kenny: I remember the 1965 flood because I was in Naples, Florida, when it started and I seen on the

TV where 17 or 18 inches of rain was in the mountains. I knew that we was going to get it. So I drove

30 hours straight without stopping to get out to the sand pit, cause my son (who was 16, he wasn’t old

enough) and Leon Winchester, who worked for me… When I got there, trucks was already coming in to

get sand. So Rex Strate brought his loader out. The county had run out of sand and they came over and

we had three loaders loading for a day and a half before the water came in. That sand pit looked like a

super-lane highway of trucks coming in and going out. I never seen so many trucks in my life. They

hauled sand clear to Dodge City because they couldn’t get sand anywhere else. When we came out of

there, then I remember when the farmers all went together and cut the wheat all along the river. When

that water came in, it washed all that fresh straw down 180 Highway there and blocked it. So that water

made a big old arc when it went to the river, just like a dam. So when it got down there to the river

bridge all that water backed up to town backwards. That creek was coming in full force backwards. It

would scare you! Pop Voran had a whole mess of people on 8th Street, so I took my sand truck and went

down there after them. Right at the corner of the school house (608 E. 8th St. and Clute Ave.), I could

see them for half a block. It was so scary; I was afraid to drive on. So I backed up and went down to the

Palace Theater and got the army truck and picked up Pop Voran. I remember that real plain. Then Turk

Lawson seen me and if I’d take my two sand trucks and blocked two of the streets because people was

driving down with tractors and four-wheel drives and waves was going in people’s houses. I said, “I

can’t have my boys…they’re only 16!” And Turk says, “I’ll see that the cops don’t give you a ticket.”

So they stayed down there about 12 hours with the trucks.

The state went and seen Rex Strate down where Lloyd Britain’s building was. They was going

to build a Rexall Drug Store (612 S. Niles). So they seen Rex to see if they could get that concrete, so he

loaded it out. He took me out to the bridge saying they were going to haul this brick out to the bridge,

but it was closed. So I said, “Well, let’s put it all on top of the bridge and we’ll push it in all at once and

that‘ll stop it.” So he hauled it all with his loader and they didn’t have no man to run his HD5. So I ran

his HD5 out there and pushed all that concrete in on that south east corner of the bridge. We pushed all

that building in on that corner, and we got the flood stopped and got traffic… from Hutchinson, they

couldn’t get through. That’s how we opened that bridge up.

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Then we hauled sand around the bowling alley, the hospital and about every building around

town. Then I got paid for hauling it in and I got paid for hauling it out. I’ll always remember that. It

was a terrible flood.

Joan: Now, were they putting the sand into sand bags?

Kenny: Sand bags and just dumping it open. Around the hospital and… you look at that picture I give

you… around the bowling alley it was just dumped a dump high. But it didn’t do no good. It was so

deep that it went in there anyway. It was terrible.

Then Turk (Clausen) hauled me down to the football field. They had over four inches of silt in

the football field. We took the scoop and the loaders and trucks and scooped that all out. It took two

days to get all that silt that silted in from the flood.

Joan: What was that flood water like?

Kenny: It was dirty, stinking. It had everything in it. From Dodge City, that water was eight feet deep

in south Dodge, so it had everything in it. Gas, and stink, and pigs and horses, it had everything in it.

But that’s what I remember about the ‘65 flood.

Joan: Where were you living then? Did it affect your house in ‘65 where you were living?

Kenny: In ‘65, I was on high ground. I lived where I live now (217 W. Sixth St.).

Joan: What do you remember about the National Guard?

Kenny: The National Guard came in here, but they spent a lot of time out on the river. They was

helping people… they was more concerned about the depth of the water. Some of them… I don’t think

the National Guard was checking the water, I think the Water Resources Board was checking the water.

But the National Guard was in here, they was helping do what they could and going and getting people.

Jimmy Heinz (the mayor) made an announcement that everyone down at the south end of town was to

go to Offerle. Everyone on the north end of town was to go to the cemetery. Buford can probably

remember that. But we didn’t have to. It was bad.

Joan: Can you remember what kind of losses people had around here?

Kenny: Everyone who had a basement lost everything in it. They didn’t have time to get it out. See, all

your sewers were silted up. They had to take all your government money to clean the sewers. The city

had to raise their water pump out here above the water. It got water in there, floodwater. It was just

mean.

Joan: And you served on the county commission. Over the years, how has the town tried to deal with

these flooding issues?

Kenny: With FEMA?

Joan: Well, or just…

Kenny: The city… Turk Clausen developed FEMA. When he was city manager, he got FEMA into the

city. They voted it in. But when I was a county commissioner, I seen enough of FEMA. I would never

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vote for it, and I will never vote for it. For 12 years we didn’t’ vote for it because we had 120 houses up

and down…all the creeks would have been in FEMA. Centerview would have been in FEMA.

Trousdale… all that down in there would have been in FEMA. So we three commissioners voted not to

put FEMA in. I don’t think people realize that, but even all your farmers out here west of town would

have been in FEMA. Anyone with a chance of being in flood water would have been in FEMA.

Joan: How does that affect things?

Kenny: How does it affect you? Well, most of your houses run from four to five hundred dollars a year

for FEMA insurance. So that would make you take a double insurance. That’s why I was against it

because of the double insurance. We’ve paid a million and some dollars into FEMA a few years ago

and didn’t hardly get $300 back for damage. So they use our money back in the East when they have a

storm, but we don’t get no benefit out of it. Since the ‘65 flood, we’ve put in a 183 bridge, a brand new

one. We widened the River Bridge. We put in bridges out here on the county. And our water isn’t

going to be changing. We cut that slew from the creek to the river so some of that water would be

diverted. All the time I was commissioner, we cleaned creeks. They finally got done, I guess, because

they ain’t done nothing last year. But for 12 years, every year, we cleaned creeks. That’s helped. I

think in a flood, from now on, it won’t never be as bad as it was in the past.

But as long as I was commissioner, I kept doing things that would help with floods. That’s about

all I can tell you about that one. I can tell you more about the ‘71 flood.

Joan: Okay, tell us about the 1971 flood.

Kenny: The ‘71 flood was just rain after rain after rain. I was county foreman, so I went up what’s

called the back roads to Harold Katz’s. That would be north of Offerle about a mile and a half. I looked

at that creek there and it was coming over the road over a mile wide. Then coming back to town, every

slew that was called a creek was flooded. I just barely got back to town, so I notified city hall (721

Marsh Avenue) and I went up and told the rest home (Kinder Kare, 208 N. James Avenue). They got

those people out. But the water was already here when they were taking them out.

But all the farmers and people around, Mrs. …, oh, I can’t think of her name. Any ladies that

was going to be flooded, I called them, and they got out. That was a terrible flood. Every creek in this

county was flooded. Rattlesnake was flooding at the same time. We had people hollering. We had one

man down at Centerview saying, “If you drain that water off on to me, I’m going to sue you.” The other

man said, “I’m going to sue you if you don’t!” So Dube (Hubert) Fatzer was county commissioner and I

told him, “Well, there ain’t but one thing to do. I’ll take a road grader through the water (it was about

three foot deep) and go to Centerview out of here.” I dipped the road. We didn’t put a tube in, we

dipped the road, and that stopped two lawsuits. But we had a terrible time. Bridges was out. But that

was the worst I’ve ever seen because the whole county was flooding at that time. I got a lot of pictures

of the ‘71 flood.

All the bridges was jammed with trees. It took us over a year to clean the bridges out and repair

damages.

Joan: How has being in this flood plain affected the economy of the county or the city? As a

commissioner, you’d know.

Kenny: To my estimation, just my thoughts alone, it’s ruined Kinsley. Because every time you try to

get a business in here, they won’t come in here because we’re in a flood zone. When Gene Putter was

city commissioner, he tried to get a building out here by the airport. Well, they had the financing, but

they didn’t get in, so they went to Dodge City, where it was high. Every time something comes in here,

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they check the flood zone, and they’re not going to come in. Because they’ll lose everything they’ve

got.

Joan: So why have people stayed here?

Kenny: Well, the reason I stayed here is I’ve lived here 88 years. They ain’t going to drive me away.

When I was in the army, I told the Good Lord, “If you get me out of here and don’t kill me, when I get

back home, I’ll never leave.” And do you know, to this day, I’ve never left. That’s why people stay.

This is their home. Me and Buford here both were born here and this is our home. It probably always

will be, but I see it deteriorating, and we can’t stop it. You take places like Wal-Mart, so big that little

towns can’t compete with their prices, so all they do is go broke and shut up.

Joan: Can you give me stories about how the community came together and worked together during any

of these floods?

Kenny: Oh yes. In the ‘71 flood, until the flood water came in, we brought sand up there and people

came in and volunteered and filled sand bags. Oh yes, when the floods come in the people here in this

town all join together. I took people upon people in storms and stuff up to the courthouse. They stayed

up there on cots because the army cots was up there. But they don’t do that now; they take them

somewhere else. But we take care of our people. When we have a disaster in Kinsley, I think the people

here are real good.

Joan: Any other thoughts?

Kenny: No, no more thoughts.

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2. DOUG BURR

Joan: Doug, where do you live?

Doug: I live a mile west of Kinsley on the north side of the highway, sort of in a flood plain!

Joan: Can you describe it? Does the creek go through?

Doug: The creek runs north of my house about a quarter of a mile. It meanders off to the north side of

town.

Joan: How does this affect your property?

Doug: Well, the water runs on both sides of it, but we’re high enough that for the most part we stay out

of the water. We put in a dike about a half mile west of my house in the ‘70s and that pretty much

helped push the water to the north. The excess flows under the highway and then back around east of

my place. So, so far we’re high and dry.

Joan: Do you remember anything about the floods in the ‘70’s?

Doug: Just a little. I was gone. The one in ‘71, I believe, was in November. We had gone to California

to visit some of my folks’ friends, so we were gone for most of it. Then in ‘73, I was in Colorado, so I

missed that one too! So, in ‘65, I was around for that one. I was just a little kid, so I can remember

doing a few sandbags here and there and helping a few people in the south end of town move furniture

from basements to second floors. It was a lot of water!

Joan: Do you remember how you felt as a kid, seeing all that water?

Doug: Oh, it was a rush, I guess. It was fun! Just water everywhere. Just stay out of the streets

because the man hole covers would pop up and the water push up. My grandmother lived on Seventh

Street, and I can remember the water backed up the street and got in her yard. Yes, there was just a lot

of water everywhere.

Joan: Did you have to get a Typhoid shot?

Doan: I don’t remember that.

Joan: So somewhere you said that in between the ‘70 and ‘73 floods, is that when they built what you

call a dike?

Doug: Yes, I think so. It’s called Klein’s Dam or Klein’s Dike. Basically, they just followed the edge

of the creek west of my house from the highway around to the north side of our property and kind of

helped slow that water. Otherwise, it would go straight east and straight into the west edge of town.

That helped push everything off to the north.

Jeff: Could you answer that again, Doug, and say that in ‘70 and ‘73 they finally built a dike?

Doug: I could…

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Joan: Just say the same thing you did, but with different emphasis. It is difficult, let me tell you.

Doug: I know! But I’m not exactly sure of the year. That’s my problem.

Joan: Just say about ‘72 or ‘71. Or the early 70‘s.

Jeff: In the early ‘70’s they finally built a dike. And in that order because I understand what you were

talking about.

Joan: And maybe say who built it! Was it the county? The city? The state?

Doug: I think the city paid for the county to do it. I don’t know; I don’t remember. Maybe Westoff

(Construction) did that. Any idea?

Jeff: It doesn’t matter.

Joan: Okay, let’s go on.

Doug: In the early ‘70’s, the city built a dike west of my house to help try to divert that water to the

north. Rex Klein was the mayor. I think they called it Klein’s Dam or Klein’s Dike. Like everything

else in Kinsley, there was plenty of controversy about that, I believe.

Joan: What would be the controversy over that?

Doug: I don’t remember. I just remember that it was spending money for something for the greater

good that not everybody benefited from. Because basically, it protects the north end of town and not the

south end of town.

Joan: It wouldn’t have diverted the water somewhere that it might have hurt somebody?

Doug: Not a lot, but it’s like everything else in Kinsley. Everything’s divisive. But it would do nothing

for the Coon Creek that runs through town. It would only be the Dry Coon that would push that water

north of town and farther around.

Joan: And then you said that in more recent years the highway…

Doug: Well, they redid the highway and shoulders and stuff a few years ago. Of course, they cut that

berm down along the ditch when they did it, and then they left it. I asked the contractor about it, and he

didn’t know anything about it and wasn’t going to put it back. I asked him to go talk to the city and the

county people and yes, they decided that it should be there, so they filled it back in. So life is good

again.

Joan: How do you think having Kinsley located in a flood plain has affected the economy?

Doug: Well, not a good thing. You can’t build basically.

Jeff: Can you start that again at the decision not to build the levy?

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Joan: Do we want to talk about the levy?

Doug: I don’t care.

Joan: Let’s talk about the levy first, that’ll be better. Okay, there was a levy proposed in ‘79. Can you

talk about that? And again, start the answer by saying, “There was…”

Doug: Yes. They wanted to put a levy in and use the road right on the east side of my place. The

north/south road to actually be the dike. It was okay, except that I’d have been flood out, so I didn’t

really think that was a good idea. From what I remember, there was no discussion about, “Well, can we

move you or can we put some protection around your place?” It was just, “This is where we want to

build it and this is the way it is.” I didn’t think that was something I could support, even though you’re

supposed to put your own feelings aside for the greater good. It would have been different if there was

15 or 20 places that needed to have something done. But it was like, “There’s just one place here.”

Joan: So you’re speaking about your home.

Doug: Yes.

Joan: You might put that into a sentence for us. You were having to move your home.

Doug: Yes. We’d have had to move the home and the whole farmstead and rebuild everything again

somewhere else. I don’t remember exactly whether discussions got far enough or whether there would

be any help to do that. It was just, “We want to put it down the road, and everybody’s on their own.”

Joan: Okay. What were we talking about?

Jeff: The brain drain. The economy.

Doug: I think the early people were told not to build here because it’s in the middle of a flood plain.

With FEMA and all the other stuff, nobody can build anything, so there’s no way to draw industry or

anything to town. So there’s really nothing for the youth to do when they get out of college, so you’re

going to lose them. As they grow up, they’re going to move away because there is absolutely nothing to

keep them here. Unless you’re lucky enough to be from a farm background and your folks have enough

ground to be able to bring you into the operation, then you’ve almost got to leave. And I really don’t see

anything in the future that’s going to change that.

Joan: Where are things now? They built the dam/dike around your place, what are some of the other

things they did around town to try to mitigate the water?

Doug: I have no idea.

Joan: Well, that might be about it.

Doug: Well, I would add this. Winchester Street, it is the perfect street, the perfect opportunity to be an

incorporated dike type of thing. It is already elevated, it stops some water now. If it was a foot or two

foot higher, it would pretty much stop the water from coming in the west edge of town. And it is

already there; it wouldn’t take much to finish it up. But I don’t know, nobody seems interested.

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Jeff: No one is asking you?

Doug: That’s right.

Joan: So you’re saying that could be a subdivision or a place the town could grow?

Doug: All I’m saying is that it could be a place to keep the water out of the west side of town. If it was

a little bit higher… I mean, it isn’t a major construction project. You’re talking about adding another

foot or two of dirt. I don’t know. When you get old, you forget. I can’t remember more than six or

eight or ten inches of water ever running over that street in the flooding. So if you’d raise it up a foot,

then you’d stop all that water from going to Medical Lodge and the hospital and all those places. But,

you know, I’m just a farmer. What do I know?

Joan: How do you think the town reacts to the flooding and the problems it causes?

Doug: Oh, everybody has short-term memories. I mean, it’s a crisis at the time, but you know. The last

major ones were in ‘73. Then they put the dike in, and it’s kind of done that. I mean, the last 20 years,

there hasn’t been any water. A lot of people who live in town now haven’t really seen it when it was

really bad. Short term memory.

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3. JUDI MCKINNEY

Joan: Judi do you want to tell us about your experiences with the evacuation of the nursing home?

Judi: The hospital. Yes. In 1965, during the flood, I was the staff nurse working at the Edwards

County Hospital on the evening shift, which is from 2:45 to 11:45. (Hospital was located at 720 E. Fifth

St.) We had been hearing all day, at home, that the flood was coming. The water was coming from

Dodge and it was coming towards Kinsley. So when I get to work, one of the patients, who was an aide

of ours, her husband had been in and said that across from the swimming pool (South Niles Avenue) the

flood was going to be to the eaves on the houses. Of course, that story got out and the patients were

kind of on edge and so were the people working. We had to go ahead with everything daily that you do,

setting up medicines and giving patients medicines. Probably about 4:00, Lloyd Britain showed up. He

was the sheriff, and, he said, “They’re going to blow the bridge between Kinsley and Lewis.”

I can remember very plainly saying, “You mean, the River Bridge?”

And he said, “Yes.” And I said, “And how is the traffic going to get back and forth?”

And he said, “Oh, everybody will have to go around.” And I’m thinking, “How am I going to go

home, because I live in Lewis.”

Then he says, “We need to think about evacuating the hospital. Because,” he said, “this place is

going to be full of water.”

So, our director of nurses had showed up. Her name was Eva Moore. She was a short, little lady

and was very, very nice. But when she got excited about something she was on a little tear, running

around trying to do everything. We called the doctors and tell them, “You’re going to have to shut your

offices down. You’re going to have to come over. We’re going to have to get rid of these patients.”

Which was about 23 patients at that time.

So finally the doctors showed up about 5:00 and dismissed as many patients as they could. Then

we find out that the kitchen has food for all these people! So we had to feed all of them because what

would you do with the food? Well, then they decided they could go home. Then, “Oh no, can’t go

home until you give them all their medicines because we can’t put any of those medicines back in the

bottles.” As a lot of them were getting ready to leave, “Oh you can’t leave until we’ve got your

temperature, your blood pressure and all those kinds of things.”

We had families there waiting, eager, and patients wanting to get home. You know, people are

afraid that water’s going to be in their houses. So then probably 10 or 13 of those people went home.

So then, all of a sudden somebody says, “Well, we’ve got some of these patients that we can’t get rid of.

We’re going to have to figure out what to do with these.” So then you have to start making phone calls

in all of this, trying to figure out where you’re going to send all these people. So everybody is on the

telephones. Finally, we did send 10 of those people up to Kinder Care (208 N. James Avenue), which

was the rest home. Then we had a gentleman who was really, really ill. It was decided that there was no

way he could go to the rest home. He was going to have to go to another hospital. Trying then to find

somebody at Dodge City to take him was almost a disaster. By the time we figured out how to get him

out there and then there was another patient they decided was not able to go home. The doctor in

Spearville decided that he could take that lady. So when they got ready to take the gentleman out, he

had to be taken out by ambulance. Our ambulance at that time was McKillip’s (Funeral Home), and

that’s the hearse! So he was taken out in the hearse, and he was going to Dodge. By the time they got

ready to take this lady to Spearville, they ended up taking her out in one of the sand trucks from the

county. She got in the front with the guy because they were afraid the water was going to be too high.

So as we’re getting ready to finally evacuate these patients, they said, “If you’ve got everything done,

now you’ve got to close all your charts.” So we had to sign all these charts off and then somebody said,

“Oh, we’ve got to put the narcotics in the safe!” So then we had to find somebody to come down and

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get all the narcotics out of the narcotics box and put in the safe. I finally got to go home at about 10:00,

and I was so thankful that the water hadn’t got here yet.

Joan: And that’s all you want to tell us? Can you tell us anything else?

Judi: Well, I can tell you about my brother who decided to go to Kinsley. My folks lived,

approximately from the feed yard (1278 P Rd), about a mile and a half east. My brother was still living

at the farm at that time. He was in his early 20s. The flood had already happened and my mother

needed some groceries, so she said, “Can you go to Kinsley?”

So he took the grain truck. He knew he couldn’t go down by the feed yard, so he decided to go

north and get on highway 50. When he crosses the River Bridge, he notices at the curve, all this water.

So he drove up to it as far as he could and he looked down towards Coon Creek. He said you couldn’t

see the concrete sides of the bridge. So he decided, well, maybe he didn’t want to go into town because

he couldn’t tell how deep it was. So, he ended up turning around and going back to Lewis.

Later, we found out that the Coon Creek Bridge had washed out, so thank goodness we avoided

an accident there, probably a bad one.

Kinsley - 12

4. JAY DILL

Jay: My name is Jay Dill and I’m the city manager of Kinsley, I have been since 2005. I’m a life-long

resident here. My first real recollection of any flooding in the community is of 1971 when I was a junior

in high school, when a flood of Coon Creek forced them to evacuate the rest home, in the north end of

town (Kinder Kare, 208 N. James Avenue). They brought the residents to the cafeteria, and we didn’t

have school for about a week. I think the next major flood after that was in ’74 (1973), and in that

period of time I was in college and I wasn’t here. After I graduated from Emporia State, I came back to

live here and went to work for the county. In 1990, I became the Emergency Preparedness Coordinator

for the county, and in that capacity, I dealt with flooding quite a bit and also mitigation. During the ‘80s

and 90s, for the most part, any flooding that took place was fairly minor. In 1995, we had a series of

thunderstorms and a hail storm which ended up closing the hospital due to damaging the roof. We had

some flooding there. We were fortunate in that the forecast for the next day called for a pretty good

chance of rain; it didn’t take place. In 1996, in November (November 18, 1996), on one Saturday, we

had a heavy rainfall to the northwest of town that Sunday morning. The north part of Kinsley flooded

with what we call the Small Coon Creek or the Dry Coon Creek. The flooding that’s taken place during

my time here…

Jeff: Let’s stop. That was great background information. For the rest of it, just look right at Joan.

Jay: I have never dealt with any flooding of the Arkansas River. That hasn’t taken place since 1965.

But in our floodplain mapping, we have three sources of flooding: the Arkansas River and the Wet and

Dry Coon Creeks. The floods that I’ve dealt with are with the Coon Creeks. They are basically the

flash flood variety, where a large rain event brings water into town fairly quickly and we see flooding.

One of the things I do know as the city manager is I am also the flood plain administrator. That forces

me to be the person who enforces the regulations on the city that FEMA puts on it. I run into a lot of

frustration with the citizens, as they don’t understand why we would have these kinds of regulations

when it hasn’t flooded. Because obviously, since 1974, when we saw our last major flooding, we’re

talking basically 40 years. But FEMA regulations are federal regulations; they are “one size fits all”.

They do not change the regulations because we’re in western Kansas or somebody’s in North Carolina

where they might get hit by a hurricane. So, having the flood plain regulations in place sometimes can

be an impediment to people building things they’d like to. But what I want people to understand is in

my time, there’s never been anybody who wanted to build something and couldn’t. It just simply means

the way you build it and perhaps the cost of it will increase somewhat. But we will work with anybody

to try to help them build whatever they would like to within our community. We are like all

communities. Our economy has changed drastically over the last 50 years or so, as fewer and fewer

people work in the Ag economy. So we fight the battle that all small communities are fighting, and

these flood plains regulations sometimes make that battle even more difficult. So, as we look into the

future, we have continued… over the years, the county and the city have done quite a few mitigation

projects, trying to help the flooding. Some of them are taken into effect on the new map, which came

out in 2008. In the original floodplain map, the entire city of Kinsley was in the floodplain. Since

January of 2008, about 1/3 of the town is no longer in the floodplain. Unfortunately for us, that is in the

middle of town and there really isn’t any open space there that would give you a great place to build.

But in the future, we hope to continue to be able to do some mitigation projects working with the county

to keep the creeks cleaned out and make sure that water can flow out of town as fast as possible. But we

will never be in a situation where we don’t have FEMA floodplain regulations to deal with.

Joan: Okay!

Kinsley - 13

Jeff: That’s the nuts and bolts.

Jay: I’ve thought about this for four hours. It’s really a difficult thing to explain to people because they

don’t understand. I guess the only other thing, and probably… The 1965 flood, which to most people is

ancient history, was 49 years ago. That means we have another 51 years to go before we hit the 100

year flood standard that FEMA uses in their mapping. So unless we do not have another flood for 51

years, FEMA is not out of line with what they are saying the standards are for our community.

Jeff: You could have that new flood tomorrow.

Jay: Well, you could. The other thing is, there’s so many misconceptions about how some of the

flooding has taken place. The 1965 flood, there’s many people who thought there was a dam, John

Martin Reservoir, the dam out there broke in Colorado. That didn’t take place. It all came from a rain

event on this side of the dam. Areas in western Kansas and eastern Colorado received up to 20 inches of

rain in 48 hours. That water has to go somewhere, and it ends up here. The same thing with the creeks.

We have seen rains to the west and north of us, south and west of us of 8, 9 and 10 inches, and we will

have minor flooding in town. If we were to ever see a 15 to 18 inch rain in a 24 hours period, the

flooding won’t be minor. It will be worse than that. It is hard for people to understand the threat of

flooding does exist. Just because you haven’t seen it recently doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened many

times in the past, or won’t happen again.

Jeff: Was it ‘65 when Dodge got hit?

Jay: Yes, and Larned and Great Bend. Now, I don’t know, did anybody talk about the fact that when

the flood plain regulations came in, they didn’t do the mitigation project to protect the town?

Joan: You mean the levy?

Jay: Yes.

Joan: Just a little bit. If you can talk to that, you can.

Jay: When the flood plain regulations were put in place in 1978, after that 13 year period from 1965

where we had seen quite a bit of flooding, FEMA was involved. The federal government had put some

money in here to help with clean up, and people in town were wanting to buy flood insurance. So that’s

how the program came into Kinsley. But one factor that many people do not understand is that as a part

of that, there was supposed to be a flood mitigation project which was going to build a levy around the

city and the City of Kinsley would not have been in the flood plain. Now obviously, that would have

backed up water on farm ground. It wouldn’t have solved all the problems, but had that project been

done, the City of Kinsley would not be in the flood plain. But since that project was voted down on two

separate elections by the voters of Kinsley, that put our entire town in the flood plain. Since that time,

we’ve been dealing with the regulations that FEMA brings with the subsidized flood insurance that the

National Flood Insurance Program allows you to purchase. The other thing that many people do not

understand is that the lending institutions, if you have a federally insured mortgage, you have to have

flood insurance if you’re in the flood plain. So you cannot borrow money on a piece of property without

having flood insurance.

So what that means is, if your property has been mapped as in the flood plain and the community

in which you live, whether it be a city or a county, does not participate in the national flood insurance

Kinsley - 14

program, you will be unable to buy flood insurance. That means you cannot get a mortgage on that

property. So people who live in a floodplain outside of the program have a very difficult time selling

their property. And that is something that has now come up, since our new map, because prior to 2008,

only the City of Kinsley was mapped. Now the entire county is and the areas all around the outside of

town in about a three mile radius, are also in the floodplain. So those properties are now in the flood

plain, but do not have national flood insurance eligible to them because Edwards County chose not to

participate in the national flood insurance program. So that’s another whole set of things. The honest

fact of the matter is, even if local officials decided they did not want to enforce regulations, the lending

institutions will have to because they’re not allowed to lend money on properties in the floodplain where

that loan is not secured with flood insurance.

Jeff: How much does that national flood insurance cost on a $50,000 house?

Jay: I couldn’t tell you that for sure. What is happening right now is after Hurricane Sandy, the flood

insurance program is designed to be self-sufficient, where the premiums that come in pay for everything

that goes out. It has never really worked that way, in large part, because the government always pays

people who don’t have flood insurance when they flood, just because politically it would be a nightmare

if they didn’t. But after Sandy took place, there was legislation that took place called Biggert-Waters. It

went through congress in 2012, which has changed this and is ending all the subsidies and making the

flood insurance more expensive and it is really going to hurt us much worse than what we already are.

There are people in congress trying to get them to back off it, but they haven’t so far. You know, it is

only a very small portion of the battle on government spending, that if you have a flood program that is

running in the red constantly that money has to come from somewhere else. They’re trying to get back

to the idea where it’s supposed to be self-sufficient. So I don’t know. Is there anything else in particular

that we talked about that I haven’t said anything about?

Kinsley - 15

5. JOHN PLOGER

John: In 1965, I was back here for the summer from college. We lived north of town, in the country, so

flooding was not an issue for us. We were in town helping sandbag the church down the street on Marsh

Ave. (Methodist Church, 803 Marsh Ave.) because of the flooding, trying to save it. As it turned out, it

got within about two houses of the church, so we kind of wasted our effort, but we made a try in case it

did come higher. I recall people coming out on the River Bridge trying to watch for it as it was coming

in. Again, it came in at night, so nobody really saw that. It was kind of significant. I remember it very

well.

Joan: What other volunteer efforts were going on?

John: Well, I just remember, I think, hundreds of people where the sand, probably from the sand pit

here, people with sacks and gunny sacks were brought in and there were just a lot of people working all

over town trying to sand bag doors and garage doors and do what they can to protect it. We had… I

don’t remember the time, but it seemed like we had quite a bit of time because it was coming from

Colorado and it seemed we had days to get ready for it. Which is nice.

Joan: Do you have any other stories about the National Guard?

John: One other thing, my mother was in the hospital here at the east part of town. She had had a heart

attack. They had to evacuate or get all the patients out of the hospital. A film crew was there filming it

for a TV station. She was the one filmed on TV, so we watched her on the news later on. So that was

kind of interesting. That’s the main thing, and that’s been a long time ago.

Joan: Where did she go?

John: I think they moved her to the west, kind of the area where Medical Lodge is now. I think it was

over there, but it might have been Spearville. Come to think of it, I think it was Spearville, out of town.

Joan: Okay, then you moved away and started your family? You came back in the 70’s?

Man: ’76.

Joan: Tell us why you came back.

John: We were living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. My wife was teaching and I was working with the

health agency, and we started looking a couple of years earlier because we wanted to get to a smaller

town. My wife’s classroom in middle school or junior high had about 150 or 180 kids a day. She just

didn’t feel like that was a good setting to raise kids. As our kids were getting close to starting school,

we started looking at smaller towns. I looked at small towns around New Mexico, but there is very little

you can do in a small town in New Mexico. There’s a lot of poverty; there’s a lot of other issues, so we

started looking back at Kansas. We came across an opening here so we ended up back here. We’re

doing a lot of different things now, but that’s what brought us back, getting our kids in a small school.

Joan: What do you do now?

John: Well, I’m in real estate. I’ve been in real estate for 30 some years. I’ve been in other things as

Kinsley - 16

well, but right now I’m involved in real estate selling. I also do a lot of appraisal work around southwest

Kansas in real estate. Talking about real estate, the flood issue does affect real estate in Kinsley, as well

as other towns. It’s always been significant here because quite a bit of the town is considered in the

flood plain, although there’s parts of it in the flood plain that have never come close to flooding, but it’s

still in the flood plain. When I started, and had our first mortgage, the flood insurance was $25 a year,

and we had to have $10,000 worth of coverage for the bank to cover. It was kind of an insignificant

thing, but at least had some coverage on it. Later on, it grew to a point of where you had to insure

whatever amount of loan you had. In more recent years, the large mortgage companies want you to

insure to replacement value. So oftentimes, someone may have a $40,000 loan in a town like Kinsley

and if you had to rebuild that house, it would be $150,000 or maybe more than that. To raise the flood

insurance up to that amount got to be a burden. However, the rates were still subsidized, so most people

could still go ahead and do this. Just recently, new rates have gone in, where they’re removing all

subsidies. I closed a home just a few months ago that got affected by the new rates. It was a $50,000

loan, and the bank just required that amount of flood insurance. The flood rates had gone up in the few

months from what would have been maybe $500 to $600 to over $2,000 before it closed. It almost lost

the loan. Luckily the people still wanted the house and could afford to pay the extra to cover that. My

understanding is that the rule is that this will still continue to go up, perhaps another 50 to 100% over the

next few years.

After you and I visited about this, I went online looking for some research on it. I understand

there is a lot of concern about this over the nation. There are meetings now in Washington on this issue

because suddenly people are walking away from homes because they can’t afford the flood rates. The

flood rates are not supposed to change on any current policy, but anybody new buying it or somebody

more recent may get caught in this increase. So something has to be addressed, or there is going to be a

major issue as far as housing goes in this country, a large part of the country, because a significant part

of the country has problems with flooding.

But it does affect our home sales. The good thing is that if your home is not in the flood plain, it

is going to be a real positive in order to help sell your house if you don’t have to have flood insurance.

But that is a small area of Kinsley.

Joan: Has the city done anything to mitigate flooding?

John: About ten years ago, in fact, over a several year period, Kinsley was working on getting a new

map done because, first of all, the Arkansas River, which has always been an issue (and especially an

issue in 1965) is really almost a non-factor now. The city worked on cleaning out Coon Creek that goes

through town, and they keep it cleaned out so it drains much better. In fact, it drains over into the river

basin now, so we reduced a lot of the risk of flooding. When that happened, it did take out a fairly

significant part of the middle part of Kinsley and then going to the eastern part of Kinsley. So that area

all of a sudden came out of the flood plain.

Several good things are that if you’re out of the flood plain, you can build basements. If you’re

in a flood plain, it is illegal to build basements; well, most of us would rather have a little water in the

basement and at least have a place to go in case of a tornado. We feel that’s a higher risk than the

flooding. But it is even illegal to put in a storm shelter that is underground, which seems ridiculous to

the local people, but that’s their rules. I think the people who make the rules don’t always understand

different areas. Our area is not that way.

Another thing about flood rates that helps, although it doesn’t seem like it, is that our flood issue

is not waves of moving water. It is so level here that when it does flood, it is very, very gradual

flooding. It comes up and then it goes down. But in the coastal areas and the big river areas you have

the wave effect, which moves homes off of foundations. Another issue that I’ve thought about is that

there have been questions of whether there’s ever been a flood policy that’s paid off in Kinsley. The

Kinsley - 17

city has checked in on that, and FEMA tells them that one payment was made once, but they cannot

verify that and nobody locally can remember it. There was a flood claim filed about five years ago in

the north part of Kinsley. They were turned down, by my understanding because they were the only

house flooded. In order to be part of a flood issue, you’ve got to have more than just one house flood.

So it was not of much benefit. Most people in Kinsley are not very happy with flood insurance. If they

had a choice, probably nobody would carry it.

Joan: How about the businesses? Has it hurt the economics of businesses?

John: It does affect the businesses. In the past, probably less so because it wasn’t as much of a thing.

Mortgages with businesses do not require flood insurance or loans. I think now that has changed some.

But a commercial loan does not have the same rules as a residential loan. Fortunately for downtown

Kinsley, we’re all out of the flood plain now, so that is probably a benefit. But it does hurt, you know, if

a large corporation or company wanted to come in and build somewhere around Kinsley, they would

have to address the flood issue. At the very minimum, they would probably have to haul in a lot of dirt

to get the site built up above. That still means they’re in the flood plain, but the rates are a lot cheaper if

you’ve been raised above that. When I built my house in the late 70s (914 E. Third St.), I built it

because we already knew about the flood plain. We built it above the flood plain. Then we find out

now that when you do that, you’re supposed to vent the home. At that time, nobody in town knew you

had to do that, so none of the homes built in those early years have the venting that’s required, so it

doesn’t help us unless we go back in and vent them. But at least that can be done.

Joan: So you said earlier that you came back to live in a small town. Do you think this is part of the

reason that young people do not locate here?

John: I don’t think that at this point that the flood problem has affected people coming back or not

coming back. In fact a lot of them coming back were really not even aware of it. Most of us who grew

up here kind of knew about it, but it was never an earthshaking memory. It is kind of an interesting one

we remember, but it just doesn’t… we don’t think about that. If you’re looking at some kind of business

where you need financing, it isn’t that all of a sudden you’re going to find that that’s a big issue.

Although at the time, when you’re first coming back, you wouldn’t have thought about that.

Another factor has affected us. Within the city limits, the city participates in the flood program,

but the county does not. I had a home outside of the city limits by less than a mile this last year, that we

had four offers on. Three of them fell through because of flood issues. Not because the house may have

been above it, but you couldn’t get flood insurance anyway. So no bank could loan on it. Finally the

only buyer was somebody with cash who could offer it. That does hurt small residential areas outside

the city limits.

Joan: Why are they not able to…?

John: I think because of the dislike for FEMA and the flood program here in Kinsley in the past. They

do not want to be involved with it. They feel that had Kinsley not gone in on it, then we wouldn’t have

this problem. That’s not true. It would still be something haunting us because then we couldn’t get

these loans at all. So the county may want to look at that. You know, nobody likes it, but there’s a lot

of residential homes outside the city limits. Most of those people, when they want to sell, are going to

have some big issues to get them sold. You don’t like to pay flood insurance, but sometimes you don’t

mind paying it if you can get your mortgage through it. When you have no option, that’s pretty difficult.

Kinsley - 18

6. W. J. (JIM) MOWREY

Joan: Okay, what can you tell us about the 1965 flood, and maybe start with what your job was.

Jim: Well, in 1965 I was secretary/telegraph operator for the Santa Fe Railroad. My hours were 3:45

pm to 11:45 pm. After I would get off work, I reported downtown here and was on flood watch. I was

stationed to watch for the flood to come to town out on Highway183 south of town. You could hear it

coming, but you couldn’t see it. I finally had to come to town because it overflowed southwest of town

here into Wet Coon Creek. It flooded Wet Coon, and we finally started getting underwater, so we had to

come back down here to Niles Avenue and Highway 50. It got to town about 2:30 in the morning, and

Wet Coon Creek flooded Dry Coon Creek west of town. When the crest got here, the town was all

under water from Winchester Street on the west to 3rd Street to the north to about half a block east of

Niles Avenue and the Highway 50. (Jim later clarified this statement to say that the business section of

town was not under water.)

Of course, all the highways were under water because the new highway between here and

Offerle hadn’t been built and it was down between that new highway and the railroad tracks down on

ground level and it was all under water. The Santa Fe (Railroad) had planned ahead of time for it,

because we knew it was coming. We set up a couple of hundred ton flat cars on what was old Tubb’s

track down here at the north end of Marsh (a short spur that went to the old Kinsley Ice House on Hwy

183) where the city people could just drive up and get ready filled sand bags. But the city neglected to

tell the people that it was there for them, and they thought it was for the railroad. When I asked them

why they didn’t take it, they told us, “Well, we didn’t want to get caught for stealing!” I said, “They

were there for you.” So we eventually pulled them out and took them to Larned, and the Larned people

were using them.

But I did manage to… the houses in the lower part of town here on the east/southeast corner of

town, I helped move all their furniture out of the house and store it an old freight house we had here

which was way up high because of the unloading dock and everything. So I had a warehouse full of

furniture for a while because their houses were pretty deep in water. The city decided that the water was

backing into town, and we held a city meeting. My division superintendent and I went to it and they

decided they would blow up the Santa Fe Railroad Bridge out there, and my boss told them, “No,

you’re not blowing it up.” So we took his high rail vehicle out there and set it on the bridge and took a

section crew out there. They had long poles, and they poked debris under the bridge. It was a brand

new deck girder bridge with no piers down in the river or anything; it just spanned the whole thing. We

never had no trouble. The water never got over it or anything. But it did come into town from the east

on account of the railroad fill. The fill was high enough to match the abutments of the bridge. It’s built

up pretty high and it worked like a little dam or something until it got to Wet Coon and then it would

dump into Wet Coon. But they decided that the bridge was the cause of all the flood. It didn’t take a

rocket scientist to figure out that the three bridges, old bridges across the roads prior to it was their

problem. When the water was flowing east, you start with the western bridges if you’re going to tear

something up.

But I don’t know. It was knee deep when the crest passed; it was knee deep coming across the

highway out here on 56 at the curve just as you leave town, emptying into the bowling alley (910 E. 10th

St.). It took us two days and four pumps to pump the water out of the bowling alley. But it never got

above the railroad, or the water got high enough to be up under the rail but not run over it. So we

managed to have trains in and out of town. And the crest only lasted about, I guess, probably 24 hours

before it moved on down. Off hand, I can’t think of much more. I did take movies of it.

Kinsley - 19

Joan: You were working for the railroad, but it sounds like you were volunteering a lot. Was there a lot

of volunteering?

Jim: Oh yes, there was a lot of volunteering. There was a lot of people, but some people were

complacent really, and you had to go really punch them up to get them to move. They just couldn’t

believe their house was in it, and it was a problem. That’s what we did with the filling up of the old

freight building, was I drove around before the water got very high and told them you’re in an area…

you can just look at the ground and tell what area has the most chance of being flooded. We loaded up

the furniture and stored it in the freight house. I was already up, and a lot of people were asleep, you

know. I didn’t get off work until right at midnight. Anyhow, I didn’t call it volunteering, I just went out

to help, beings as I was up.

Joan: So the flood didn’t affect the railroad. The trains were always able to get through on this one.

Jim: Yes, we had to come through slowly, because we had… the trains ran right through anyway. They

cut down on the number of trains, the railroad did, because anything that wasn’t necessary they didn’t

take the chance of running into a washout. Because, when you have a flood on a fill on a railroad track,

you worry about gophers. Gophers will burrow under a railroad track and then when a flood comes, the

water goes in their burrow and pushes up from the bottom. That’s how the track gets washed out; it

blows out the top like a fountain. But fortunately, the water only got up just about to the base of the rail.

It never did run over the fill, and we managed to keep railroad service. There were a lot of trains

through town back then, and we had six tracks crossing Niles down there on 183. There were 14

passenger trains a day through here and 11 freight trains generally and then any extras they needed to

run. It was a busy place back then.

Joan: Did it damage the railroad bridge at all?

Jim: No, it didn’t damage the railroad bridge. The railroad bridge is a steel bed girder bridge; it is all

self-supporting, just the bridge base of it. The only piers were on the ends. There was no impediment of

flow or anything through the deck bridge. That’s why they built it that way because of the history here

of floods back then.

Joan: So you didn’t have to sandbag or anything at the bridge.

Jim: No, we didn’t have to sandbag nothing. The sandbags were here strictly for the public, and they

didn’t know it and it went to waste. That was one of the sad parts of it, but that stuff happens under an

emergency. You know, people don’t stop to think.

Joan: How do you think the town reacted to the emergency?

Jim: Oh, they were kind of laid back. They didn’t really think it was an emergency. I don’t understand

why, because it was Wet and Dry Coon bordering the town. Back in them days, there was always water

somewhere in town. But I know that when I first came here, they told me about the floods they’d had in

the past. They told me that the city of Kinsley was two foot below the river bed. So in my mind, I

figured, well, if we ever had a flood in the Arkansas River, we was going to have it in town. Sure

enough, we did. I come from Dodge over to here.

The people weren’t expecting it to amount to much, other than like the little floods we had from

the two creeks. It was just too much. It was prior to the John Martin Dam being built, and the river

Kinsley - 20

always run almost bank-full of water. Kids used to go swimming and ice skating in it. I don’t think

we’ll ever see something like that again, I may be wrong, but with the John Martin Dam the river is dry

now. Hopefully, we don’t get a monsoon season, or with all the trees that’s growing up, we going to

have the same old thing, only it will be home grown then instead of from the mountain flow. But that’s

just my opinion. I’m not a scientist, neither.

Joan: Well, just to surprise you, the John Martin Dam was built at that time. But it filled up, and all the

water that came through here was from a rain event east of the John Martin Dam. It wasn’t from the

mountains. I thought it was too, but I called the Army Corps of Engineers and they clarified that.

Jim: Really! I didn’t know that, I thought it was before the John Martin Dam. Maybe I’m thinking of

the one before that when I was over at Dodge.

Joan: How do you think living on a flood plain at Kinsley has affected our community?

Jim: Well, the effect on the community from living on a flood plain is very little effect as far as I’m

concerned. I see no problem with it, as long as you realize what can happen. What can happen

generally does happen, at some time or another. Settle it in your mind what you’re going to do if it does

happen, then go on about your business. I’d rather live here on a flood plain than in Florida or

California. We really don’t have that much problem. There is an awful lot of things happen in the

United States that is a lot worse than living in Kinsley, Kansas. In fact, I kind of like it here, if you can’t

tell. But you can live life here laid back and enjoy life. In so many places you go, it’s a battle every day

and hectic. Good people here in Kinsley, I don’t know, I’m just sold on Kinsley.

Kinsley - 21

7. NANCY WEIDENHEIMER

Joan: What do you remember about the 1965 flood?

Nancy: Well, we lived completely on the eastern edge of town (403 Elizabeth Avenue) which is close to

the creek and close to the river. There were many, many reports about this wall of water that was

coming down the Arkansas River. I was a believer, I guess, and something inside me told me that we

were going to have water in our house. So I insisted, and Bob (husband) and they moved all of our

furniture out of the house into Bob’s parents’ garage (Dean and Louise Weidenheimer). We even took

the doors off and the cabinet doors. We saved a lot because we did have water in our house, eleven or

twelve inches, maybe. Then the water came up down the street which I’d never seen it there before.

They lived on Seventh Street (507 E. Seventh St.), and the water was coming up on that street and all the

houses are higher than the street. We were afraid the water was going to run through his parents’

garage, so we moved our furniture into their living room, and it sat there for three or four weeks. But we

saved everything! I did not go down to the house when it was flooded. Bob knows all about that. He

didn’t want me to go; I never saw the house with water in it.

I remember, the store (Weidenheimer IGA Grocery Store) didn’t have water either, and we were

down a couple blocks from there, and Bob had to carry his dad on his back to get across the water to get

to the store to work. But I pretty much stayed there and didn’t really see other things. It was traumatic

enough; and I’m not like other people, I don’t have a lot of pictures of the flood. In fact, I was

astounded that we had water in our house. I could not really believe it.

Joan: So you stayed in Bob’s parents’ house?

Nancy: Yes.

Joan: Do you remember anything about the Red Cross or the Salvation Army or any of that?

Nancy: I remember they were around, offering things. I don’t remember anything of great help offered.

They were offering things to help clean up, but of course, we had the store, so we probably already had

them. I don’t remember much of it. I do remember they were around, but I don’t remember anything.

The water didn’t stay up long; it went down probably the next day.

Oh, and speaking of the railroad, Bob says that the water came in our house from the north, after

it had already gone past. It turns out that the railroad tracks blocked the water and made it come back.

So, if I ever hear of another flood… I’m not moving out, I’m blowing up the railroad tracks!

Well, I’ve said that all these years.

Joan: How about the clean up?

Nancy: It was very difficult. There was mud everywhere. We had lots of friends, lots of people that

came and helped us. You had to practically get down and clean the mud away from everything. We had

even taken up one carpet, I think, maybe both of them. We only had carpets then in the living room and

our bedroom. We took them up and I think we saved them because I think we put them back. But we

had a lot of people who came and helped us because you just had to get on your hands and knees and

scrub. All the cabinets that were low were dirty. I think we drilled holes in the bottoms of all the

cabinets to get as much mud and stuff out as we could. As I think about it, there’s probably some still

there.

Kinsley - 22

Joan: How did the people in Kinsley react to the flood? Was there a community spirit?

Nancy: Now, my view is personal, so I don’t know. I thought it was community shock because so

many people had troubles. The southern part of town got water all the time, and this time they had a lot

more. Where our house is, it had been built in ‘61, and I expect there had been water there before, but

there weren’t houses. I thought everybody worked together because we had an awful lot of help

working on our house. The mud that was brought into the yard was maybe six or eight inches thick.

Bob was on the fire department and got the fire truck to try to use the water to blow it off the yard.

Where it hadn’t been running, the dirt piled up, the mud. It was just very muddy everywhere.

Joan: Why do you think people live in this flood plain?

Nancy: Because people don’t ever think it’s going to happen to them! Where ever they live, people live

where they tell you your house is going to fall down with an earthquake into the valley in California.

People just don’t think it is really going to happen. It is just supposed to be that the 100 year flood only

happens every 100 years. So I’m counting on that! I don’t know, people just don’t think of it. We built

our house at a time that a lot of those houses out there are built on cement slabs. That was a big thing to

do at that time. Naturally, they’re lower to the ground. They stand up under water, the cement does, but

it would still be better to be built up higher. I wish we had. The house next door to us is Atwood’s

house; it is built two or three steps high. They had water up to the floor, and I think it got their floors

wet, but it didn’t get their house wet.

Joan: The creek floods after ’65, did they threaten your house?

Nancy: Well, they kind of threatened it, and I was terrified, but no, we never did have water again. I

think it takes a lot of water to get that much in town. It would come down our street and up in our yard

some, but no, we have never had it before or since.

Joan: Okay, can you think of anything else?

Nancy: Well, it is very personal, because I was in shock and disbelief through the whole thing. I can

barely remember being at Bob’s mother’s. Of course, she cooked for us and took care of us.

Joan: I have another question. What about insurance? Did your insurance…

Nancy: Oh no, we had a GI Loan to build our house and we didn’t have insurance then because you

didn’t have to have flood insurance. After that, we had flood insurance, of course, but we thought

maybe that people who held our mortgage might be a little understanding, but they weren’t. They didn’t

care what happened to us. So no. We got no compensation at all.

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8. VIRGINIA GLEASON

Virginia Gleason: I have lived in Kinsley since 1938, except for college … but otherwise, I’ve always

lived here with my parents, and then my husband and I came back here.

Joan: So you’ve experienced quite a few floods. Do you remember any of the early floods from the

1940’s?

Virginia: I just really… when we talked about it, I kind of remember, but the main one was the 1965

one. Of course, that’s what caused so many problems.

Joan: Okay, tell us about the 1965 flood.

Virginia: We stayed here (909 E. 5th St.) as long as we could, and then our neighbor called us in the

middle of the night and said we’d better get out of here. When we left, we’d parked the car in the alley.

So we left, went out the back, and left that way. The water was coming down Elizabeth, which is the

street over east of us. We’d already moved all of our pets. Bill, my son, had a lot of animals, so we

moved those to my folks because they were a higher spot.

Joan: Tell us about those animals.

Virginia: Well, I’ve forgotten how many we really had. We had 25 turtles and Banty chickens that

we’d gotten from a friend. We had ground squirrels, I think they are, and somebody had brought Bill a

… from the mountains, whatever they’re called (chipmunk). They were in cages, so everything was

moved out.

Joan: Where did you take them?

Virginia: We took them to my mother and dad’s, which is on 6th street (406 E. 6th St.) and close to

downtown, so it is one of the high spots. That’s where we went when we left here and spent the time

with them. My sister and her husband also because they were affected by it. We all camped out at

Mother’s.

Joan: What was it like during the flood?

Virginia: Well, we were also down at the drugstore. I remember sandbagging, and I still had the

sandbags for a long time after we’d emptied them out. We sandbagged down there, but we really didn’t

need to. Not here, I don’t think we… we put towels at the back, but I don’t know, for some reason we

really didn’t think we’d be… ours was the highest house. It was the last one built on this block.

Evidently they’d learned that they should be higher. So they were, and we weren’t affected by the water

except in the garage and all of our yard. That mud is terrible! We’re still… if I’d go through the

cabinets out there in the garage, there’s still mud caked in there from it. It is such a sticky mud.

Joan: What was the flood water like outside?

Virginia: It is sticky; I think from the feedlots. It peeled up. We’d just plugged in the backyard, so they

could pull up whole big plugs of it for weeks afterwards. One of the pictures that I had was of the front

yard, where Jim was trying to pull the mud off; it was a fairly new yard. We’d just been in this house

Kinsley - 24

three years. We lost our shrubs out front, all except for the blue spruce. It was tiny. I guess it was

smaller and didn’t get as much mud on it. So it didn’t kill it that way. We kept it, and it’s still growing.

Joan: How did it affect your neighbors?

Virginia: Everybody had water in their house, everybody. Everybody had a mess. I really don’t

remember that there was that much disease from it. My husband’s parents, his dad, believed that my

husband died from encephalitis. But I don’t think so; he had an aneurysm. But he died in November,

right after the flood. Mr. Gillette always said it was from the encephalitis that Jim had. So that was one

of the problems. We all got shots, I think. I think we all had to go get shots (typhoid shots).

Joan: How did people react to the flood as far as surviving? Helping each other?

Virginia: I didn’t have to help. I was busy here with my own and then the drug store. That’s all I can

remember taking care of, just getting ourselves cleaned up. People helped out in the country, but in

town, I think everybody pretty well took care of their own.

Joan: How did that affect your trade at the drug store? You had a soda fountain.

Virginia: Yes, we had a soda fountain. No, we didn’t. We were already moved into the new store. We

had moved in ’64 to where the drugstore is now. We took the fountain out, so there wasn’t any problem

there. I suppose, you know, there wasn’t as much traffic, you know, I just don’t really remember.

They’d moved patients out of the hospital and out of the rest home, but I don’t remember how long they

were gone. It has been too long; all I remember is the mud.

Joan: Do you remember the proposed levy that came after you had floods in ’71 and ’73?

Virginia: Not the mechanics of it, no. I just know that they tried to get different things and you’d clean

out, and it comes right back. This has just always been my home, and we’ve always had water.

Joan: On Elizabeth Street, they built the ditch.

Virginia: Yes, and that has helped. The ditch that is just east of here on Elizabeth Street has helped our

street because it used to flood every time it rained. Our gutters would be full, way up over the gutters,

almost up to the drive a few times. Now, we don’t have that problem. It very seldom gets above the

gutter, so that has really helped.

Joan: Can you think of anything else the city has done that you think has helped?

Virginia: The city has cleaned out south of the ditches, but they fill right back up with trees when we

don’t have rain. It is just a different area here than it is in the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers

because they are so wide and full of water and no trees. We’ve always had trees, and now they’re

nothing but trees in the river and in the creeks.

Joan: What does that cause when there are trees in the…

Virginia: Trees dam up the water and hold trash, so that’s a problem. The city, or the county, I guess,

would be the ones that worked on both sides of Kinsley trying to keep the ditches cleaned out. But it is

a no-win proposition when it gets dry.

Kinsley - 25

Joan: How do you think having Kinsley in a flood plain has affected the community?

Virginia: The flood plain has just given all sorts of problems. I just heard about the helicopter pad that

we can’t use. I don’t know if you’ve discussed that or not.

Joan: Why don’t you go ahead as it just happened?

Virginia: It just happened yesterday, or I just heard about it this week, that the helicopter pad that they

spent a lot of money on and put just west of the hospital (which is in the west part of town). It floods

around it, but not that badly, usually. It hasn’t recently at all! I mean, it goes elsewhere, I guess. But

they can’t use it anymore. They have to take the patients down to the airport, load them up in the

ambulance and take them to the airport and the helicopter has to land there. It is just one more problem.

Joan: We’re going to have to investigate this, isn’t the airport below the floodplain!

Virginia: That’s what I can’t figure out. It should be, but evidently it is maybe higher. Because I don’t

remember it ever having water problems with the creeks when they flood. I don’t remember them

having any problems. Anyway, it has caused lots of problems.

Joan: What do you see for the future of Kinsley? Do you think the flood plain affects that?

Virginia: Oh my, yes. Because we can’t get businesses in here. They can’t get insurance… I’m sure

that’s why, well, a motel. We’re on three big federal highways and we can’t have a motel come. I’m

sure that has a lot to do with it, that the flood insurance is prohibitive and getting the ground high

enough… They’re trying to get a discount store of some kind out to the west, but it’s real low, and

they’d have to haul an awful lot of dirt in to get it above the flood plain. Because, what good does that

do if you can’t get to it.

So Kinsley’s downtown area is above the floodplain, evidently, and it is out of it. But that’s all,

and a few of the houses. But I’m not leaving. This is my home and most of us that live here want to try

and stay as long as we can. We’ve managed to keep enough businesses here.

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9. CHARLES SCHMITT

Joan: Okay, Charley, what can you tell us about the lead up to the 1965 flood.

Charles: Well, as I remember the 1965 flood, I had some cattle north of town here on rented pasture

along with an alfalfa field that I had put up for a gentleman by the name of Clare Bidleman. I’d talked

to him about the flood that the Dodge City radio was saying was forthcoming here and that it was going

to be a bad one. So I asked him about it, and he said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ve lived here 77 years

and I’ve never seen that much water here.” So I kind of thought, “Well, he ought to know.” Then a

relative called from Dodge City and said, “It’s much more severe than they thought it was.” So I got

busy and we just moved the cattle out of there on higher ground.

Well, the next morning, early, I went back there to pick up the mineral salt blocks and so forth,

and that was an experience that I’ll never forget. It was just coming in that pasture, rolling probably a

foot to a foot and a half high away from the river bed out on the flat ground. Ahead of that, I could hear

the crackling of sticks and tree limbs and so forth, and young wildlife trying to stay ahead of it. You

know, the deer and the coyotes, they was all right; they was getting out of there. But I remember that

the rats and the mice and the skunks and possums and badgers, they was just barely staying ahead, and it

finally overtook them. The prairie dogs, they were barking around, but to their demise, they ran back

down in the hole. When that was all covered, I think that was the end of them. The crows were flying

around, crowing. It wasn’t traveling all that fast, probably maybe five miles an hour because it was

spreading out. It wasn’t so severe there, I found, because the railroad bridge had collected enough

debris on their pillars or ties that it kind of made it part of a dam which would hold a little water for a

little less surge, you know. But it was quite cruel to see those little animals all get flooded. I wondered

how many it took, you know, from its way down from Dodge City here. Then when it dried up back to

alfalfa, there was quite a stench from all those animals that they lost and the debris that we had to clean

off of the alfalfa fields so that we could cut it and bale it.

From then, I went into Kinsley to where my folks lived. I think it was 624 Fourth St. that the

water had come up from the east instead of from the west which the lay of the land is. That was because

of the amount of water that the railroad bridge couldn’t handle. The way that it affected my folk’s house

was that sewer or the drain in the basement backed up and the toilets wouldn’t work, or course. But in a

day or so it went back down, and really it was no great damage because that water is quiet water. It is

not rushing or surging like around the river bed.

Joan: Did you have anything to do with the National Guard or the Red Cross? Did you have any

dealings there?

Charles: No I didn’t, not with the National Guard or the Red Cross. We did with FEMA and the flood

insurance later on, anyway.

Joan: Okay, can you tell us a little bit about that? Were you on the city commission?

Charles: Yes, I was at that time. We was doing the remapping and we didn’t get as much as we’d have

liked on the remapping. They was a little slow to get things around. The thing about that was that it was

mandatory rules and regulations, which really didn’t make much sense because the reasoning was that

the water came from the southwest to the southeast, yet that major flood backed in from the opposite

direction. So you had to make an extra expense of any building and either spend a lot of money in

places where it would probably never flood again due to the fact that the city has put in drain tubes or

drain culverts to put the water back into Coon Creek and a large diversion ditch on Elizabeth street on

Kinsley - 27

the east side of Kinsley which can carry a great amount of water. Since then, if you take it back, it is

also designed with a gate that the water can go out but can’t go back in, in case this ever happens again,

which it most likely won’t with the river railroad bridge being redesigned to handle a greater amount of

water. So, that really shouldn’t be a factor. I have a desire, I think it would be only fair, if we could

negotiate with FEMA about the high rate of insurance and mandates that they provide. Yet on your

insurance policies, being still water, a lot of the insurance don’t qualify because it just going to… well,

quiet water instead of surging water. That all can be negotiated if they would, but they’re pretty set in

their ways so far. But I think the time is come to where we can take care of that. I think maybe we can

get out of the flood plain altogether because of all the work that’s been done.

Joan: You were on a planning commission; is this what that group was working on?

Charles: Yes, they had a city meeting and it had a lot of things like that Edwards County was working

on a plan for a diversion ditch that would divert the water between here and Offerle to go back into the

river somehow, to keep it out of Kinsley. Some other plans, which were soil conservation and things

like that, and terraces we put in, a whole different way of farming now, which should relieve those

pressures of high water. Of course, we went to a Coon Creek Water Shed District, which I was involved

with setting up. We had the manager that was retired from Jetmore Watershed. He was willing to help

us over here. We had directors from each part of the county that was on that. The last thing we needed

to do was to put it up for a vote. We also had the Soil Conservation from the National to go over and

check our procedure. They were all in favor and told us how we should do it and everything. So we

were just waiting on the vote, but it was so slow getting the remapping program along with the diversion

ditch, which wasn’t very popular and didn’t ever happen. Myself, I had health problems then, so I

turned it over to the soil conservation and it just kind of… time went by and nothing ever happened. I’m

not so sure now just how important that whole thing might be. I think the whole thing needs to be

reevaluated. By the way, the city has developed measures, and there’s no water pumped out of the

basements much anymore, which always was a problem in some heavy rains. If all that is taken into

consideration, I think FEMA should grant us more liberties so people can… it has been a hardship for

our town to grow, for you know, business. I talked to one this morning that has just bought a house. He

was amazed with how much flood insurance he had to pay. Anyway, I hope we can better things by that

through negotiations.

Joan: I guess I could ask you too, after the floods of the 70s, there was a proposal to do a levy all the

way around town. I think it was around ’79. What can you tell us about that levy proposal?

Charles: Yes, I was in on that too and at the meetings. We had several meetings. It was highly

controversial, and I felt sorry for the farmers that was around the edge of town that bought the land, that

we should shove our water on them. The main reason was that with ground and the gravel and all that,

underflow was the big problem. We’d have a big levy, but the underflow would fill that levy and you’d

have to wait for the underflow to take it back out again. Finally, the city commission… you know there

was a lot of heated debates about that. So it was put up, rightly so, for a vote. At the voting time you

could vote yes or no. Thankfully, I think the people understood that it wouldn’t work, so it was highly

defeated and I was grateful for that, myself.

There was a levy proposed in 1979 of which I was part of. We have some town meetings and

had our people debate it. It was very controversial. But rightly so, the city commission brought it on to

a vote, and it was defeated quite badly, which I was grateful for because it wouldn’t work on account of

the underflow in this town.

Kinsley - 28

Joan: Why do you suppose people still live in Kinsley when we’re on this flood plain and we have to

fight all of this all of the time?

Charles: Well, because it is a good place to live. I’ve lived here and was born north of here and I went

to school here and I’ve lived here all the time. I’ve been in the service and I’ve been in a lot of places,

but I still chose to come back here. I like the people and the challenges we have. It’s just a friendly

town, and I think it just needs to be perked up. We can solve our problems if we work together. The art

of negotiation is the success of any business and that also goes for our governing body.

Joan: How do you think the people worked together after the flood of 1965? Was there cooperation and

helping of each other?

Charles: Very much so. Those people that had wheat that was halfway ripe, you know, the neighbors

took their combines over there and tried to get it cut just before the waters came. I had all kinds of help

with the cattle and all that. Of course, the government helicopter was up there telling me to, “Evacuate!

Evacuate!” you know. Everybody was there doing their job. Those people who were on the high

ground came in helped move furniture and everything they could to help those that were in the city. We

may fuss among ourselves, but in need, like most places, we gather together. It is a wonderful place to

live.

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10. MARSHA BAGBY

Marsha: I am a lifelong resident of Kinsley. My parents are also lifelong residents of Edwards County.

Joan: How did you become interested in the flood issue?

Marsha: Well, in 1965 my dad (Wayne Rose) had to help with the ‘65 flood because he was in the

National Guard, and the Corps of Engineers asked him to help with the flood. So while we were going

through the flood around our home and everything, my dad had to be gone to help others in the

community. That was the major flood, as well as the other smaller floods that came in after that.

Joan: Do you have any other memories of that ‘65 flood?

Marsha: I remember that the ‘65 flood left a lot of yucky mud-like stuff that was smelly and very hard

to clean up. Our home was on a higher part of town (519 E. 8th St), and it came right up to the front but

it never came into our home. But it came into many homes, and my great-grandmother that was in the

rest home had to be transported to a higher level of property through a row boat (This memory is

actually from the November 18, 1971 flood).

Joan: How did you get involved with the flood issue, the governmental side?

Marsha: Well, as a resident of Edwards County, I’ve always been aware that the floodplain issue has

been a big negative in our community. It has stopped potential business development from coming here.

I figured that when I had the opportunity when I became city manager, that I was going to educate

myself and learn about the flood issue and find out if anything could be done about it and what those

options were.

Joan: Do you want to tell us about things now?

Marsha: Kansas is a state that was founded on the principle of self-reliance. There is a certain amount

of distrust of government throughout the state. The planning process utilized by Kinsley exemplifies the

best of planning and how it can build bridges between government and the private sector.

When I became city manager, I had worked at the city for five years and I knew when people

came in to get building permits for new properties and new construction that no one quite understood

what FEMA and the floodplain issue was. I felt like after working for three previous city managers in

five years, that none of them understood it. I felt that the best way to address the floodplain issue in

Kinsley and the negative impact that it was having, and that FEMA was the talked-about four-letter

word in Kinsley, that I would use education to try to educate myself before I could address the issue as

well as move forward in trying to solve the issue.

So my first thing was to research any past information that had been on the floodplain and how

we got into the flood insurance program. When I found out in 1973, that the commission had adopted

the floodplain ordinance so that we could participate in the flood insurance program. This means that a

federal lending institution cannot lend any money unless you are in this program because Kinsley has

been identified as a disaster area. I also found out that the flood insurance program had gone bankrupt

because the regulations within their program were not being properly administered. So they came down

hard on all the lending institutions, went through their records to see if that if everyone they’d made (a

loan on) had flood insurance. If not, they had to make them purchase it, and see that every building that

had been built was in compliance. So it became a very serious issue very quick. At that time, when they

Kinsley - 30

adopted the flood insurance, your community had to be mapped, and it had to be mapped within the

government deadline. Well, they were so far behind that they just went through communities, mapped

them with the promise that they would come back and make it a more accurate map.

That promise never came to fruition, largely because of lack of funds. So my first idea was,

“This map is wrong.” I set out to prove that the map was wrong. The way that I did it was I started

talking to the Department of Agriculture in Kansas, the State Department of Water, as well as to FEMA

in Washington D.C. Within these agencies, from when I started talking to them and I documented every

conversation, every email, every FAX. Everything I had from them, I popped into a log. Then the state

thought that it was very interesting that our community was trying to address the floodplain and asked if

we would be interested in doing a flood mitigation plan, which means a plan that would help us address

the flooding issues within our community. Along with that plan, they said they would be willing to help

put in some money for our community to do a comprehensive plan which would also address other

issues such as housing and appearance of the community, tourism. It would be one large plan

addressing all of these issues, but basically it was done on funding for the flood mitigation plan. So

through that, to begin the plan, I thought we would have a community meeting. We had well over 100

people at our community meeting and everybody, I believe, came because they thought it would be

interesting because they thought it was a complaint session where they could talk about what they didn’t

like. But I made it very clear that those comments were not welcome, that we were there to talk about

improving the community and how we planned to do it. That the meeting wasn’t just about complaints,

it was solution driven. So from that meeting, we broke up into groups. We identified the issues, which I

knew floodplain issues were the number one issue. But it is a little bit better when it comes from the

community that they believe that is the issue.

From that planning meeting, then we set up teams to address (the people that were interested in a

specific area) those issues. From that, a flood team was born, and we had some very outstanding

community people on that – diverse: that knew about flooding from being a farmer, from knowing about

flooding from being a government employee, from being a resident. It was a very successful team, and

we compiled all this information together about our community. That plan went on to win numerous

(awards)… it was the National Small Community Planning Award. It received numerous awards

throughout the state from the Department of Commerce and Housing because it was such a complex

plan.

Another issue was that Kinsley was the first community in the State of Kansas to be considered a

Small Project Impact Community that was named by Washington, D.C., and we were sent to

Washington D.C. to be recognized and receive the awards. From that, the community then became

nationally recognized as the smallest community on the map that was accepted into this program and

nationally recognized where I served on many panels throughout the years. One of the most interesting

things was that they also then paid my way to go to education in Washington, D.C. I went to floodplain

manager’s training in a class that was one week long. Then I also went to the flood insurance training,

and that was one week long in Washington, D.C. The most interesting about the flood insurance

program meeting was that we had a speaker who was telling us all about the flood insurance program

and how wonderful and how it could help you and what you could do and what you couldn’t do. I raised

my hand and I said, “Your program is not working.”

He said, “What do you mean, ‘The program’s not working?’’

I said, “Our whole community is in your flood insurance program, and it’s not working because

according to what you’ve just spoken about, we couldn’t have a hospital, we couldn’t have a school, we

couldn’t have any emergency facilities. So we couldn’t have a community.” And I said, “Besides, our

community doesn’t like it because people coming into our community can’t afford flood insurance as

well as all the other costs of buying a home or business. The gentleman said, “I will speak to you after

class.” I was like, “Fine.”

Well, after class I found out that the man that was presenting this was the chair of the national

Kinsley - 31

flood insurance program. He said, “What are your issues?”

From then on, Mr. Wentworth would call me and ask me if we adopted this regulation, how

would it affect the small community? And I would give him feedback on that. So therefore, I built a

very strong relationship that was very important for our community that at least people were recognizing

that in one of the communities that the whole community is in the floodplain, which is very rare. Most

communities just have a small portion. It affects how the regulations are actually implemented and what

impact they would have on it.

With this education, I would bring it back, and I would share it with our community. So then it

kind of softened that, “FEMA, we don’t like it but it is something we have to deal with, and how are we

going to do that.” So the flood team proposed… we put on a meeting and proposed to the community

that we would do that in several steps. One of them would be that we would take preventative measures

on what to do. We identified the three flooding sources that we had coming into our community, and

what we would do to protect our community from each one of those, whether it be a dam, building

dams, whether it be a better drainage system, whether it would be elevation. We have improved and we

do have a better flood warning system through the Emergency Preparedness and the NOAH Weather

Warning Systems. We do have our creeks and river monitored to give us more advanced alert that

waters are coming. Sometimes we have days of warning; sometimes we only have hours to prepare. So

I believe that the preparedness was one of them.

The second one that we chose to do was education. This was that if you choose to come to our

community, this (flood regulations) is a fact. But instead of making it be a negative thing, we tried to

soften it and make it a positive. We are working on the issue, and that we are working hard on the issue.

The biggest thing, I think was that our map was wrong! And I knew that! I wanted to do something

about that, because I felt that our community deserved to only pay insurance on things that needed to be

paid on because it was a burden, and there were some areas of town that it didn’t need to be a burden in.

So my next mission was to get an accurate map. Well, of course they said, “We don’t have any funds

for mapping, and it would cost a lot of money.” I’m like, “Hey, you guys were the ones that did it

wrong! We’re living by your regulations. You’re the ones that did it wrong and I want it right.” So I

was able to use my networking with state and federal friends, and that helped me work on the source.

Finally, we did come to an agreement that the map was wrong and how we would address it. So, we

were the first community in the State of Kansas to get to start the remapping process. The remapping

process was a very lengthy process. It was done with the Corps of Engineers, and there were many

partners that were involved in this. None of that came from the community. They used our community

data. We had started doing a better job of reporting that so people didn’t always have to go and reinvent

the wheel when they went to build something. So with all these people that were on our team, we

started working on getting the map. Kinsley is unique also in that we have floodplain and a floodway.

No new construction, nothing, not even a utility pole was to be put in the floodway that would displace

water.

So there was zero growth on the south end of town. Not only did people not understand, “Well,

how come across the highway they didn’t have to do this but over here we do.” That became a very

hard sell to the citizens of Kinsley that we have two sets of regulations actually. So we started working

on that and a lot of that was done with me and my passion being an advocate for the community and

fighting that the information was wrong and that it needed to be corrected. So after all the work they

did, it ended up that they did a new map and the government paid for it. Kinsley did not pay anything

for our new map. Now communities are fighting for the same thing and dollars to get it done, and it is

just a very slow process.

Do you understand? Because I am so passionate that I could keep going and going. I don’t

know. I’m trying to put it in line about how… they used to call me Miss Floodplain! People would call

me throughout the state; people would call and say, “The state told me to call you because you would

know more about this.” And I’m like, “Okay!” Actually, I was offered a job in Washington D.C. and

Kinsley - 32

the State of Kansas to work for FEMA. But I was passionate about Kinsley!

What the new map has done for Kinsley is that we are now just the floodplain. The floodway

has been removed, which was to me a big, big win for us because there can be growth south of 10th

street. Prior to that there hadn’t been. Projects, as well as the FEMA map, now does take out some

properties that are not in the floodplain, which allows for homes to be sold. My mom just sold her home

simply because it is not in the floodplain. When people would say that, “You’re just doing this for

personal benefit.” I live in the lowest part of Kinsley. I’m like, “I’m doing this for all of us because a

new business cannot be developed in Kinsley under those regulations.” Our community was dying a

very quick death. I believe that these new regulations make it so much easier to address those issues and

are more workable than has been in the past.

One of the things with the floodplain issue is that there is no basement. Your base floor has to be

one foot above the floodplain elevation. So there are no basements in Kinsley, but you can have storm

shelters. They are approved storm shelters that are built of thicker concrete and stuff so that you are

allowed to do those. There are special regulations. Mobile homes. You cannot have a mobile home

that is on wheels, just a temporary type home. All the mobile homes have to be tied down and have to

be a permanent home. So it did open up a lot of areas in the fact that there were more options to help

people to come in here and live.

I’m not sure, within our office currently, we have a title insurance company and I’m not sure that

everyone understands what flood insurance is or what flood insurance is about or flood insurance will

cover. Because, flood insurance will only cover damage to your structure and it’s basically if it has been

moved or damaged by the water. It will not cover contents, but you can get insurance to cover contents,

but flood insurance is very expensive.

Flood insurance is the same rate throughout the United States, which was one of my biggest

complaints I tried to address. Why homes along the coast could be destroyed, be rebuilt, be destroyed,

be rebuilt, and we were paying the same rate they were when we have several thousands of dollars in

one claim. And that was it. When we were paying the same premiums and the same rates. Well, they

did have a program that was called the CRS program, and a community could join that, and you would

have to do projects. They had ten levels, which could reduce your flood insurance. But even Tulsa,

who was the most compliant community in that program, I think their highest level was a five, and that

was with a full-time staff working on this. A lot of what that program was, was documentation of

information and it was a lot of office work more than projects that we did.

We were all about doing the projects. From the flood mitigation plan, we were able to do two

diversion channels. One we identified was to take the waters from the business district to the creek, and

(the other) then from 5th street in Kinsley where it gathered and backed up in yards several blocks down,

now takes the water out to the creek as well, to Coon Creek and dumps it there. It actually works,

because I live two blocks from that and I see how the water just rushes through now. In the past, it

would just stand there and be in people’s yards and did get into people’s homes. So that was one of the

best things that we did. We also did cleaning of the waterways, so that the water would move through

the community faster than it had before. But I do think that the biggest thing was the communication

with the different governments and with the citizens. I’m most proud that James Lee Whit came and

recognized the City of Kinsley and really made us stand out because it was a citizen-driven program, not

a government-driven program. That’s what I’m most proud of-- our community came up with a

solution. We’ve lived here; we knew what the issues had been in the past and what needed to be

addressed first. So I was very proud of our community coming together.

Today, I can’t say that FEMA is a word that people enjoy hearing. But I think that people today

have a better understanding of FEMA than they did 10 or 15 years ago. I think that there’s still projects

that could be done; I know that money limits that. I know that the map is made so that the more projects

that we do, the more land will come out of the floodplain. I am very excited and hope that someday that

comes to fruition. Will our community ever be out of the floodplain? No, because they chose to live

Kinsley - 33

here because of the water, to have the access to water. You know, we had the opportunity to move our

community, but everyone chose to live here. We wanted to live here; we didn’t want to live up on the

hill. Our ancestors chose to live here; and my parents who had lived through floods that… my father

was from Lewis and they couldn’t get to Kinsley because of the river flooding. They still chose to live

here, knowing that would happen. We are in the 100% floodplain. That means that there’s a 1% chance

that every year there could be a flood. That doesn’t mean that the flood happens every 100 years; it

means that every year there is a 1% chance that we could have a flood. It is really hard for the people to

understand. Why are we in a floodplain when we’re talking about droughts? At some point, all this

information may need to be revisited. But it isn’t going to be revisited unless you fight for it, unless you

address it, unless you can prove that you have researched it yourself, that you have interest, and that it is

a high priority for your community. They’re just not going to come out and say, “Hey, we know you

haven’t gotten any rain. We might look at your map.” The government just isn’t going to do that. You

have to be proactive for your community. That is what brought Kinsley the recognition, got them the

money to help them do these projects and basically got them the notice. People do know about Kinsley

and the floodplain because it received so much recognition for the citizens’ efforts. I give credit to the

city commission at that time who backed me on doing this project because everyone hated it. It was a

negative project. It was emotional, because at some points it could be farmers against city. It was hard.

But they believed in me. They believed in the need to address that issue, if we were going to continue to

be a city, and they were very supportive. I always gave them the credit, and they liked that.

I hope it comes to fruition! Under James Lee Whit (during the Clinton Administration, he was

the director of FEMA) he designed a plan which is called “Project Impact”. The basis of that plan was

that the community would identify the issues and the solutions for funding. They had the money for the

funding, but instead of telling us, “This money can only be used for dams, or this can only be used for

structures or anything…” We had to write a plan which is included in the flood mitigation plan,

identifying flooding issues in the City of Kinsley and what our solutions were on how to fix it. That is

how the City of Kinsley became the first Project Impact community in the State of Kansas.

Maybe I should say, there’s only two communities in the State of Kansas that their entire

community is in the floodplain. The other community chose not to join the program and basically has

zero growth and is just dying out because they cannot receive any federal funding to help build the

community, homes or repairs or anything. They cannot receive any disaster funding. Kinsley, on the

other hand, has chosen to take the other road and to do everything we can to educate ourselves and use

the programs that are available to us. People didn’t understand in Washington D.C. that the entire

community could be in a floodplain. That was very shocking to them when I talked about us having

critical facilities in our floodplain that are necessary for our community and if those regulations were

enforced, we would actually not have the fire services, the hospital, the services that we are now able to

have to complete a community.

Joan: Let’s talk a second about how the hospital had to built.

Marsha: In the ‘90’s, we had a very large rain that ruined the roof of our hospital and which basically

closed our hospital down because the roof of the hospital caved in and destroyed all the equipment and

everything. There sat the hospital, with the question of, “What are we going to do with it?” That also

brought the floodplain issues very front and center, because the question was, “Do we rebuild the

hospital? Can we afford to build it to higher standards that it would need to be built to? How are we

going to address that?”

The answer, eventually, was that if they used the old hospital that was destroyed for

administrative services, they could continue to do that. But for the medical services, that part of the

hospital, which would be the new hospital, had to be built to higher standards. With it only being half of

the hospital having to be built to higher standards, it was more cost effective. The difference is that

Kinsley - 34

between the two buildings, there is an ambulance bay. Because if they had been totally connected, it

would have been considered one building. It would all have had to have been in compliance. Thank

God that there was an ambulance bay between! So the medical services did have to meet the higher

standards set by FEMA, but the original hospital, we could remodel and make it used for administrative

services only. That was for the protection of lives. It wasn’t about that we couldn’t have people staying

in the original part of the hospital; it could only be for services that were not life threatening.

Early on, people didn’t realize the flood insurance program, for instance, was adopted in 1973 (in

Kinsley). So I think that prior to that, the flooding wasn’t an issue. It was just something like the

tornadoes; it was something that might happen in our area. Also, I think new people coming to Kinsley

and perhaps building are kind of used to working with regulations and are probably not as opposed to

being in compliance as maybe some of the elderly. This community is a community that has very deep

roots and the loyalty and the land that people came out and homesteaded I think is very… their passion

for this area is very strong.

Jeff: What do you hope to see in the future for Kinsley?

Marsha: If I had my wish, I would like to see an ongoing effort to see flood projects continue in

Kinsley. I believe the map was built so that more areas of our community could come out with a little

bit of effort. Which I understand takes money…which there isn’t an abundance of. My wish would be,

and I believe that we could annually do at least a project to show the community, anybody looking at our

community, that this wasn’t a one-time effort. That we are continually working on addressing our issue,

that we continually recognize it as being an issue within our community. I think that there are small

things that could be done, as well as large things that could be done.

And the thing is, is that some of my buddies (in the government) are all still there. Some of them

aren’t, but some of them are! So, I think that it could be done, but it takes work.

Joan: If more projects were done, would they have to come back and remap again, or would they just…

Marsha: You would just remap the area that would be impacted. The whole community wouldn’t have

to be remapped, it would just be… Well, if they did a dam, that would be a large area, but you know,

culverts and things like that, that would just have to be in that area. But that could be done very simply

by getting elevations and stuff. It is not a whole big government project.

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11. HAROLD BURKHART

Joan: What can you tell us about the 1965 flood?

Harold: Well, the main thing that I can remember about the 1965 flood was me and my next door

neighbor at the time was Ottho Lafferty and we stayed up all night anticipating where the water was

going to come in. You know, how fast and when. We checked it I don’t know how many times on the

river and down on the Coon Creek. At about 4:00 in the morning, we were down on the bridge on

Colony, on the Coon Creek Bridge. We anticipated the water coming from the west on the normal flow,

but we was standing there and pretty soon here came the water from the east! The creek was running

backwards. There was about two feet of white foam and wheat stubble on top of it, all moving to the

west. So we decided we’d better go home, so we got back on the highway and were down by Strate’s

Café (Corner of E. Milner and E. Highway 50; Strate’s not there at the time.) and the water was coming

across the road there on the highway. We turned north on Elizabeth and we got up there on 6th Street.

The water was coming in from the east real fast. Water was just shooting out of the storm drains, there

was so much pressure in the storm drains coming back. We got home and the next morning I had about

three to four inches of water in the yard. It didn’t get in the basement, but I had about three feet of

underflow in the basement. The next day, the National Guard came and told us to get out, so we spent

the day and the night at the appliance store uptown. We spent the night there. Then the next day we

went back and got into the house. The water backed in from the east. Normally, you’d think it would

come in from the west and the south, but when it hit the railroad bridge the trestle, the trestle out there,

the pilings were so close together that just a small amount of debris would catch in there and it was just

like a dam. Most all of the water backed into town, you know.

Joan: What kind of damage was done in the city?

Harold: Well, at the time, I was in the appliance store. I did appliance work or whatever. Just about

everybody in the east part of town had damage to their washing machines and dryers and water heaters

because of the water that got up on them. If I remember right, the Red Cross came in and anything that

had any damage, they replaced. As far as damage to the homes, I don’t know; I really don’t know. I

know the day the water really came to town, I was walking down my alley to the east and just a block

this side of Elizabeth St., the water was moving so fast. I was going to try to walk through it, but I

couldn’t. It was running so fast and was about two to three feet deep. That was about it, there.

Joan: What was the water like afterwards, when they had the land and the cleanup and all that sort of

thing?

Harold: Well, it was like my yard was. There was just an inch or two of mud on top of everything. The

water was very muddy. Lord only knows how much contamination there was in it after it came in all the

way from Colorado!

Joan: Did you go get your typhoid shot?

Harold: Yes. My kids also.

Joan: After the ’65 flood, there were a couple more bad ones in ’71...

Harold: ’72.

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Joan: ’73... Do you have any memories of those?

Harold: Yes. In ’71, I had bought the ground out here in the west part of town to build a new meat

processing plant. In ’71, the North Coon Creek flooded and we marked on a power line pole out there

the high water mark, where it was out. Well then when we got ready to build, we built it a foot above

that mark on the pole. Then in ’72, in the fall of ’72, it flooded again. I think both Coon Creeks

flooded. It got right up to the sidewalk on my plant. We sandbagged, but we really didn’t need to, it

didn’t get in. There was a lot of water in town.

Joan: Then a levy was proposed. Do you remember anything about that?

Harold: I was on the city commission when the levy was proposed. The people, the farmers on the

outside of the levy, were very, very concerned about it. They were very put out about it. A lot of people

were for it; a lot of them were against it. I said, to me, to myself, I’m not going to make a decision that’s

going to affect everybody in town. Let’s put it to a vote and let the people decide. So that’s what we

did, and it was defeated. But now, I think a levy would work with the new railroad bridge. But at that

time, with the railroad bridge the way it was, if we would have had a levy, we’d have probably had two

or three times more water in the city than we had because it wouldn’t be able to get away. You know

what I mean.

Joan: So, when that was defeated, what did the city then do to try to mitigate the flooding issues.

Harold: Well, for some time, I don’t think anything was done. Then they came in and they put that

drainage ditch from Elizabeth St. up to the creek. That was one of the best things they ever did. Then

they cleaned out the creeks. That really helped, that made a big difference. I know I was in the

floodplain before, and after they put that drainage ditch in, I’m out now.

Joan: How has Kinsley being in a flood plain affected the economy?

Harold: The economy was affected really bad. Because you really can’t build anything in Kinsley

without going above the floodplain, just like out around my plant. I’ve got about three acres out there,

and different ones have wanted to buy some property to build houses or whatever. Well, we had it

surveyed and we’ve got to raise it three to four feet with fill in order to build anything. Well, you know

that’s prohibitive anymore, for that much. It’s made a big difference in our town. Our town just cannot

grow as long as we’re under FEMA’s control, I don’t think. It has held us back tremendous. Kinsley is

a nice town to live in. It’s a good place to raise a family. If we could just start building, I think we

could get back on the positive side again.

Joan: What do you think they should do in the future?

Harold: That’s a good question. The levy would work now, I think, if it was proposed again. I think if

they keep the creek beds cleaned out, I think that would make a tremendous amount of difference. The

condition that our river is in now, it is so grown up with trees, if we ever have another flood, it is going

to be bad. Water cannot flow down the river anymore. It is almost solid trees. So I don’t know what

really would be done, other than to try to keep the creek beds cleaned out and the river cleaned out. Let

the water get away, that’s what bothered us so much before. The water would just back in and stand

here.

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12. SUSAN MATHES

Susan: I was a young wife and mother (at the time of the 1965 flood). My husband and I had just

moved into a house on Main Street. We’d lived there about a week when this all took place. He was out

in the country trying to cut wheat in a field that was for sure going to be flooded by the river. So he

couldn’t come to town and help me with anything. We kept hearing the stories, “The waters going to

come all the way down Main Street! It is going to get in your house, going to get in your yard.”

So I packed my kids up and I kind of waited to see what was going to happen. Well, sure

enough, here came the water and by the time I had everybody in the car and was driving out, I drove out

in water. I think the water… I believe it probably went all the way down Main Street. I drove out in

water and I drove over to my parents’ home, which was on the north end of town. They didn’t have any

water there. There was probably some water clear out north across some roads out there, but where my

parents lived, there was no water.

Joan: Did your house get flooded?

Susan: No. There was water in the yard; there was water in the basement. The basement was full of

water, old straw, nasty, nasty stuff. It was in there… it was probably there for two or three weeks before

my husband got around to getting it. He just had to shovel it out; there was no other way to get it out.

Because he had been so busy at the farm, getting that mess cleaned up out there. His folks didn’t get

water in their house either, but it came up as high as the final step into the house.

Joan: So what was the cleanup all like? Either on the farm or in town.

Susan: I think it was a major cleanup because there was so much debris. You have to think of all that

water that came down that river before it ever got to Kinsley. It had dead animals in it, lots and lots of

straw, debris, and mud. It was just an awesome mess, it was. It took, I think, a good part of the summer

and maybe into the fall before most of it was cleaned up. I think it probably took longer than that,

really, the largest part of it.

Joan: What do you remember… now you stayed with your parents then? How long did you?

Susan: I think about five days. They wouldn’t even let us go back in the house until the water had

totally receded, so it was probably about five days before we moved back in. One thing I remember too,

was we hadn’t been there very long, and there was an old garage there. We had filled that garage with

clothes, things we hadn’t gone through yet, and of course they were all ruined.

Joan: Did insurance cover any of this flood damage?

Susan: We didn’t have any insurance. We were young; we were renting the house. No, what we lost,

we lost.

Joan: Do you have any memories of the Red Cross or the National Guard?

Susan: I do not. I remember having to have typhoid shots. They made the whole town get those, but

that’s all I really remember.

Joan: How do you think the town is affected by being in a floodplain?

Kinsley - 38

Susan: Well, I think the town has been terribly affected because you have so many obstacles that you

have to go through to redo your house, to build… This was a nice thriving little community for many,

many years, and it is not now. We just had a friend who has lived in Kinsley for several years and was

wanting to buy a house. He ended up buying a house in Larned because he said he can’t afford a house

here because of the flood insurance. So that’s another family. We have a really hard time drawing

people in, I think, at this point. I know they have taken some areas of town out of the floodway, well,

we live in the floodway. We live south of Highway 50.

Joan: Floodway or floodplain?

Susan: Well, the floodway is worse. There is less you can do with a floodway, is my understanding. I

don’t know all of the details, but I think anything south of Highway 50 is the floodway. The floodplain

is the rest of Kinsley, but from south of the highway it is floodway. So I guess it makes us more prone

to flooding. Our house has never been flooded. It was not even flooded in 1965. There was some

underflow in the basement, and that was all. But we’re still… we would have to get someone to come in

and reshoot our site, which is kind of expensive. So, what little we have done we have had to do

according to FEMA.

Joan: Going back to the ‘65 flood, how do you think the townspeople reacted? How did folks react to

that flood and deal with it?

Susan: Oh, I think the town effort was great. I really feel that people bonded together and, you know,

we worked hard to get our community back the way it was supposed to be because at that time, like I

said, this was a thriving community. We had three grocery stores; we had two pharmacies; we had three

clothing stores. It was quite a busy Main Street. There was positive aspects to helping redo after this

flood.

Joan: Can you think of anything else? Little stories of helping people cleanup?

Susan: I don’t remember this, this is from my husband. When the flood water was coming in (because

his folks’ farm was about a mile from the Arkansas River) he laughed after it was all over because he

had a terrible time getting his mother to leave the house. But she finally did. They finally got her out;

he and his dad were trying to finish up a wheat field. He said the planes were flying overhead and back

and forth, “You’ve got to get out of there, get out of there.” And there were lots of farmers who did the

same thing. I think there were some maybe, I don’t know if it was at our farm, but there were other

farms that if they would be done with one of their fields, they’d pull over and cut wheat for somebody

else so they could get it done. So that was people helping one another.

Joan: These planes were like the National Guard?

Susan: I think so, because they just simply… they wanted these guys out, now. They probably was

National Guard.

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13. MARVIN RYAN

Joan: Okay, Marvin, what can you tell us about the flood of 1965?

Marvin: 1965, our fire department was called to Dodge City to back up their fire department (June 19,

1965). One of their fire stations was under water and the trucks were on the south side of the river and

couldn’t get across, so three of us took one of our fire trucks the night of the flood in Dodge City and

stood by on reserve. We went to Fire Station One, which had an upstairs in it. We went up there and

looked out the window. In the south end of Dodge, as far as we could see, houses were being pushed off

their foundations. Cars were floating down the river. It was scarier than hell, I’ll grant you. We came

back to Kinsley the next morning, worked on sandbags, started evacuating. The night the flood came to

Kinsley in the middle of the night (June 21, 1965), I was on standby out east of town. At that time, there

was a Champlin Station (Corner of Hwy 50 and Elizabeth St.) there and that was where I was stationed.

When the flood came in, all the animals were rolling ahead of the water, rolling over the highway, and I

took off and went back home. That was the end of my participation in the ’65 flood. Of course, then,

we took some pictures and stuff like that when it got to town and started that way, and was evacuating

all along the… the National Guard came in and helped tremendously. They deserve a really big pat on

the back. They really helped get the people out and had the equipment to do it. That’s about the end of

my ’65 experience.

Joan: Did you participate in the cleaning up? Did you have a business at that time?

Marvin: No, I was on the road for a truck line at that time, so I left town the next morning back with my

job. No, I didn’t get involved in cleaning up.

Joan: Okay, go ahead and tell us the story about why you think there was less damage here than in

Dodge.

Marvin: Well, according to the National Guard helicopter pilot, he said that the farmers cut their wheat

out west of town, whether it was ready or not, and put the straw down, a lot of straw. That straw caught

the water, backed it up and spread it out and consequently we did not have near the force of water come

to Kinsley that was in Dodge City. We were very lucky, and we should be real thankful for the farmers

doing that. It saved a lot of property in Kinsley.

Joan: When did you go on the city commission?

Marvin: I went on the city commission in 1974 for a three year term.

Joan: So can you tell us anything about the floods in ‘71 and ‘73?

Marvin: I live on 2nd Street on the north end of town. There’s two creeks that come through town,

North Coon and South Coon. In one of those years, I’m not sure what year it was, but down south of

Spearville all around the Windthorst area, had seven inches of rain. That’s where the South Coon

begins. Out north of Offerle had six inches of rain, and that’s where the North Coon begins. They both

hit town at the same time. First Street was wall to wall water, in the curbs and completely across the

streets. Then out west of town, Winchester Avenue was holding the water back. When it got over the

top of Winchester Avenue it came down 2nd Street. Well, I lived on 2nd Street, and right then and there I

decided that I was going to do something about water coming to Kinsley, or try to anyway. Later I got

on the commission.

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Joan: Okay, what can you tell us about the Army Corps of Engineers coming in and the levy?

Marvin: Okay, right after we got on the commission, we hired a new manager by the name of Keith

Jantz. He had a degree in city management. He knew the right people to get a hold of and to make the

right phone calls to get the Corps of Engineers involved in building a dike around Kinsley. They gave

us two options: either move the city or build a dike. So, we proceeded to put money away to pay for

our portion of that dike. I believe it was 1976, our city manager and the Larned City Manager got

together and proposed a meeting with the Corps of Engineers in Albuquerque, New Mexico because we

were both ready to do something. The Corps of Engineers told us that if we could come back and put it

up for a vote and if it would get voted in, that they would build a dike. They’d get the dirt from city

property out south of the airport, make a recreation area and fishing pond and a picnic area. The dirt that

they used for the dike would be taken from that location. We put it up for a vote and we were just, I

suppose you’d say, sure it was going to go through so we didn’t campaign for it, and it got beat. The

city voted it down and that’s what creating your flood insurance right now.

Joan: Did you try to pass it a second time?

Marvin: Yes it went for a vote the second time, and it was beat. I’m not sure by how many votes, but it

didn’t go through the second time either.

Joan: So then later in the ’90’s… I want you to talk about being on the planning committee.

Marvin: Well this was while I was in city hall. We appointed a task force, I guess you’d call it, of

planning the dike and working with the Corps of Engineers. A fellow by the name of Ernie Higgs was

the chairman of it. He was also the head of the soil conservation district. He was to make sure that none

of the water that was being held back would create any problems with the farmers. According to the

Corps of Engineers, the way they designed it, there would be no problems. But it was still voted down.

Joan: What problems has it created to not have gone through with this dike?

Marvin: Well, people who buy a home now, or a business, and have to finance it. They definitely have

to… it is mandatory to carry flood insurance, which is a huge expense. You can’t build in Kinsley

unless you raise the property up above the 100 year flood level so that stops any progress as far as

building and new businesses coming to town.

Joan: So do you think this has hurt the economy and the growth of Kinsley?

Marvin: Well, I’ve been here in my business for 49 years and have seen a lot of changes. People have

been real good to us, that stayed here, but if you can’t build and expand, your business is not going to

grow. That’s what is happening to us now. It is a shame, but I guess that’s part of life. If they didn’t

vote it in-- we tried, and it didn’t go through, and that’s just the way it is.

Joan: Has the city done anything to mitigate the flooding since then?

Marvin: Oh, they’ve worked hard on it ever since then, day and night on it practically. But I’m not

involved in it anymore, so I don’t know what the progress is. They’ve taken some out of the flood plain,

I know that. That’s helped some. If you do build, or as in my case, I sell Sturdi-Built Buildings, they

are portable, on skids. But if they put them in their back yard, they have to put flood gates in. Well, that

discourages people from having anything open. That’s why they put a storage building up, to protect

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their property and to protect what they put in there. So that has hurt those sales tremendously. If you

build a garage, you have to have flood gates in it. It has been a mess, a real mess.

(Asked to repeat for the film)

Marvin: It has affected any kind of building in Kinsley. If you don’t raise it above your flood level, you

have to put flood gates in it. In my case, I sell Sturdi-Built Buildings, and if you put a Sturdi-Built

building in your back yard, you have to put flood gates in it, so you’re not really protecting the property

you put in there from varmints or anything that can get in. If you build a new garage, you got to have

either electric doors that will come on when the water hits it, or you have to have flood gates. But that’s

just the way it is.

Joan: So why did you stay in Kinsley?

Marvin: Well, I raised four children here, my wife and I did. We got a home here. We got a good

business here and people’s been good to us. I don’t think we’d go anywhere else.

Joan: What do you see for the future of Kinsley?

Marvin: Well, if we could keep the young people back in town, if we could have the young people

come back to town, maybe we could have more progress than we have now. There’s really no high-

paying jobs here for the young people. We have Midway Manufacturing, which has employed a lot of

people and is doing a good job. Our school district employs a lot of people and is doing a good job.

Our hospital does. But that’s about all we have left. The county employs quite a few people, but we

have no big manufacturers. We’re on three highways. We should be really booming, as far as

transportation, but it just ain’t happening.

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14. BUFORD BRODBECK

Buford: I was appointed fire chief in 1955, and I’d been on four years before that. We knew the flood

waters were coming. I alerted some of my men to kind of get ready, to stand by. We had no idea how

bad it was going to be, but we knew it was going to be bad. At one point that afternoon, we were down

on the Coon Creek Bridge on Niles, watching for it and everything. Pretty soon, one of our firefighters

came over and said, “Chief, come here.” I went on the other side of the bridge and the creek started

running backwards. I knew we were in trouble then. That was just going to push water all out. So I had

a jeep, and I had a bullhorn speaker. I went down to the east end of town to try to alert people to either

get more sandbags or get the heck out of there, to do what they were going to do because it was going to

get bad. I had another firefighter driving the jeep for me. We were at the intersection of Niles and 7th

Street. We stopped there a minute, and I was yelling at people and everything. All of a sudden, I

noticed the jeep was starting to float away down the street. I said, “We’d better get out of here!” But

there wasn’t a lot of things we could do except we did have at that time an Army 6x which was equipped

to go into high water. We did go down in the south end of town and try to help people get stuff out of

their basements. Also, we nailed yardsticks on telephone poles down there. We’d go back to the station

and every half-hour we’d go down and check and see how much it had raised. It was just keeping

coming up and coming up! We were lucky, nobody really did a lot of… it was just terrible in your

house, silt and stuff. We did go down and move some stuff out of basements. A few people wanted to

get out of the house, but most of them wanted to stay there. I know it could have been worse, but it

wasn’t any good. It never did get downtown to my business on Main Street. We did take one of our fire

trucks and park it in my driveway because it was dry up there. In case we did have a fire, the guys,

some of them in that end of town, could wade through the water to get to it. We were lucky we didn’t

have any of that. Outside of that, I don’t know, we just helped. We helped sandbag, and we helped

clean up everything.

Joan: Did you help the National Guard at all?

Buford: I don’t ever remember seeing the National Guard here!

Joan: They were! There weren’t any fires during this time, right?

Buford: No.

Joan: Dodge had some fires.

Buford: Yes! That was…

Joan: Did you go over to Dodge the night before?

Buford: Yes. We got a call that said Dodge City, the whole town, was on fire and could we come help

them because their trucks… one station was on the south side of the river and they couldn’t come. We

got over there and… we come over that hill on the bypass and you could just see smoke on the horizon

over there. I thought, “Oh my God. We’re in trouble.” It ended up, water had got into their gas

distributing plant and raised the pressure. About every other house, their meters were on fire. They

don’t know how they got on fire, the pressure got too high. We stayed all night. We didn’t do anything,

but watch it. We knew we were going to have some water because I remember standing there that night

about 2:00 in the morning at the fire station. It was up on the hill, Boot Hill, and looking out south

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there. I could just see water as far as I could see of South Dodge. I knew we were going to get a lot of

water.

Joan: Was the fire department involved in the cleanup?

Buford: Oh, we helped some, but most of our guys had jobs. They had to go back and work. Most

everybody just kind of had volunteers come in and help them and everything.

Joan: How do you think the people of Kinsley reacted to the flood and everything?

Buford: Oh, I think they done a real good job. Nobody seemed to panic or anything. We had a few

down at the south end of town that got a little panicky, but we got them out and took them some place

where they could get dry. I had a couple of my friends stay all night with us. They couldn’t get out of

their house back in there.

Joan: Did the community come together pretty good?

Buford: Oh yes.

Joan: Can you think of any examples?

Buford: Well, there was always somebody bringing us something to eat or a cup of coffee or something.

The town’s always been real good about cooperation and things. When I had bad fires, they’d help the

people out and everything.

Joan: Why do people stay here when it so difficult to live with these reoccurring floods?

Buford: Why do they stay in this town? Because it is my hometown! I don’t know, we’ve lost a lot of

people, but it is hanging around anyway. It is just like any small town; the big towns are squeezing us

out. But we’re just going to have to learn to survive, I guess.

Joan: Are there any other floods you have any memories of?

Buford: Oh, I can’t think of too much. It’s been a few years back. I guess I’m lucky to be able to

remember what I did.

Joan: Do you remember when they proposed the levy system?

Buford: Oh yes, that was quite a fiasco, I guess. I don’t know. I could see the people out along the

country that didn’t want it. It was going to bring a lot of water to them and whether the levy would help

that much or not… I don’t think a levy would have helped on that flood. A lot of other ones, the

smaller ones, it probably would have. I noticed a picture in the paper this week, people up on the old

coal chute, that (water) must have come up from the North Coon Creek. I never seen water out that

way, that much.

Joan: It might have been the Arkansas too. You don’t remember when they tore that coal chute down,

do you?

Buford: No, I really don’t. I remember riding up and down on a bicycle. I thought that if they’d caught

Kinsley - 44

us when I was a kid, they’d have spanked our butts! That thing was so rickety; I don’t know how it even

stood as long as it did.

Joan: How do you think living on a floodplain has affected the community?

Buford: Well, it’s just kept people from wanting to build houses. We had probably, I’ll bet we’ve only

had one or two houses built in this town since that floodplain came in. We’ve had some mobile homes,

and I can’t figure out how they figure this floodplain out. When they first come out, my house was

never even near the floodplain. It’s one of the highest points in town. When they redone it, I’m in the

floodplain! That don’t make a lot of sense. I don’t know. I can see the point when the commissioners

got some nice grant money, but they had to sign to get that. I don’t blame the commissioners at that

time. It was one of those things that we just don’t know about, I guess.