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Show Oak Creek Has'Series of Floods Which Completely Ravage Creek; Dry Creek Floods First Time in Years: Roads Gone An eye-witness account ot the flood in Oak Creek Canyon by Raymond Sanford Assistant Project Director at Topaz What was perhaps the worst recorded re-corded flood in Oak City Canyon ravaged its creek, camping grounds and roadways during the latter part of the afternoon of Monday, August 6. The first persons to observe the phenonemon were Raymond P. Sanford, San-ford, assistaint project director at Topaz, his wife, Jean, his eightenn year old daughter, a recent graduate gradu-ate of Topaz high school, and his 11-year old son, David, of the Hinckley Hin-ckley grammar school Since August 1 they had been camping in their tent trailer at the east end of the camping grounds south of the creek. Daily it had rained, But Monday Mon-day was fair and sunny. The San-fords San-fords had laid in a store of wood wrenched from trees and stream by car and tow rope, the ground had been neatly raked, some of Mrs. Eliza Anderson's string beans were cooking on the canyon stove, typewriter and papers brought out on table to answer much delayed correspondence and Bishop Marvin Lovell, representative of the forest ranger, had recently departed with his family after delivering a gallon of milk when the sky began to overcast with intermittent sunlight sun-light breaking through. There was not thunder everything was still, calm and-peaceful. Then without warning it came! Mrs. Sanford was first to detect an ominous, unfamiliar grinding, and crashing roar. She called her husband hus-band and all the Sanfords ran toward to-ward the stream and there at the very point where Mr. Sanford had flipped many a trout from a peaceful pool, they beheld the most unbelievable sight a moving mov-ing "wall of of China" marching sidewise, punctuated by massive trees, stumps and debris with black water breaking through! Could a little fairy brook become so suddenly a deardful, massive torrent? Such a fascinating sight held their attention like the skill of a magician the need of self-protection was held in the background. But then great trees held the debris, de-bris, the water packed and rose, they overflowed about the camp, they flowed in a torrent on both sides the Sanfords were maroon- mtm ed! Things happened! Typewriter, important papers and valued personal pers-onal effects were packed in the family car but then the road became be-came a torrent also. Mr. Sanford backed it toward the highest point on a clump of trees spearheaded against the onrushing flood by a great cottonwood there is was locked and wired fast to trees. Then the impacted trees were a-gain a-gain swept away, the channel south of the Sanford camp momentarily momen-tarily lowered. Mr. Sanford forded this current to take his wife and son to a safe position. Then he and his daughter, Jean, rescued the contents of the car, forded the south stream and stored them up the canyon side under a tarpaulin together with enough food and clothing to last until daybreak. Just then Mrs. Annie Cooper, whose husband is serving with our armed forces and who had been camping at the main camp with her children, put in a perplexed appearance. ap-pearance. Mrs. Sanford hiked back with her over an ever-narrowing road. Almost an hour later, Mr. Sanford San-ford with the help of rope and improvised im-provised levers and the constant .aid of his. daughter, was able to roll away the road-blocking logs sufficiently to get the car to the main camp but then the main bridge was undermined on the north side and cut off by a log over three feet in diameter and the road strewn with logs for over half a mile west where the water was still running down. After hours of our furious struggle strug-gle and dowsed, the Sanfords, with the aid of Mrs. Cooper were able to clear the bridge and road. Then came Ivan Shipley who helped place big logs under the north and edge of the bridge. Mr. Sanford warmed up his car and shot across the bridge. The Sanfords and the Coopers spent the night at the hospitable home of Mrs. Cooper's mother, Mrs. Eliza Anderson, and on the following follow-ing morning Mr. Sanford had road washed trout and raspberries for breakfast at the home of Mrs. Mae Shipley. There had been a series of smaller small-er floods on Saturday, Sunday, and the larger flood of Monday. The earlier floods gutted the creek of fish killing many large browns that are reported to have been as much as 17 inches long. Hundreds of the fish were picked up in fields, and even on the oiled highway in Oak City. The flood was the worst for years and did considerable damage to the fields, gardens, and in some cases flooded cellars in Oak City. |
