REPORT OF VANPORT FLOOD, May 30, 1948

As Observed by Stephen E. Epler, Courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society, Vertical Flood Files

Dictated June 9, 1948

About 4:15 p.m., Sunday, May 30, I heard Dean Cramer say that the dike had broken and that we should get out quickly. I had been working with 25-30 students and faculty including Mr. Putnam, Mr. Halley, Mr. Egleston, Mrs. Barendrickk and Mr. Walker. We had decided earlier that it might be wise to get out some of the records for if the warning came to move, the authorities might not give us time to do this. The truck had been loaded and part of the load was being put in the Studebaker bus. About 20 typewriters were on the ground beside the truck. When Dean Gramer gave his warning, I got in the truck as I had driven it down, and drove down Meadows, Cottonwood, and Lake, shouted to a woman standing on the street that the dike had broken and for her to get her family in the truck. I then ran in my unit, 19097 N. Lake, warned my wife, Mr. Walton and Mr. Bruer. Mr. Walton got his family and the visiting family (his father-in-law and wife) into the two cars and left. Mr. Bruer and his wife got into their car and left. I saw that Ferne, (Stevie and Charlotte), my wife and children, got our car started and headed out. Before she left I went into our apartment and took out the drawer in the desk that had our insurance policies. I made one more trip into the house to get the keys to the State car which I had placed on the kitchen shelf. On the way out I grabbed my golf clubs which were lying by the door. I ran upstairs to the apartment of Mr. Dan Thompson, a student, and told him to get out in a hurry and gave him the keys to the State car. I then went in Ramsey’s apartment. Mrs. Ramsey was alone with the two babies, one about 6 months and one about 2 years old. Mr. Ramsey was over to Tony’s getting groceries, Mrs. Ramsey was reluctant to leave as her husband was gone and the children weren’t dressed. I took the small baby, wrapped it in a blanket and put her in the State car thinking this was the best way to get the mother to leave the apartment. Mr. Thompson came down and took over the job of getting out the Ramsey family. I then ran back to the truck and drove to Victory, turned right and headed for the exit. I shouted several times to people I passed that the dike had broken, but none of them seemed to believe me. The traffic was fairly light until I had reached the traffic circle on Denver Court. Between the traffic circle and Denver Avenue, people were waiting as the Denver Avenue traffic from Vancouver was heavy making it hard for Vanport cars to move.

It probably took me five minutes or so to reach Denver Avenue. I was on the inside lane and as soon as I got past the dividing middle curb, I attempted to start a third line of traffic by driving in the inside lane which is normally used by north bound cars. As this time the traffic going north was approximately half one lane and could earily be accommodated in a single outside lane. One passenger car coming north actually made me stop the truck to express his disapproval of my being on the wrong side of the street. He did this even though no car was near enough to prevent him from pulling over to his outside lane. The traffic of Vanport was made even slower by the traffic light at Argyle and Denver where the cars were stopping on the red light.

I drove down Interstate with the truck, turned left a block or two north of Lombard and then cut through what I thought was the shortest way to Jefferson High. Here the principal, Mr. Bosserman, got a number of boys from the nearby tennis court to help me unload the truck. I would estimate that it took about five minutes. I told him that I wanted to return to Vanport with the truck for rescue work. As soon the truck was empty, I let Mr. Bosserman handle the locking of the building and our materials and I immediately drove back to Vanport. I came down Vancouver and turned down Schmeer Road by the race track but found this road blocked with cars. Here I saw Mrs. Flanagan, Mr. and Mrs. Holland and family who were on their way to Vanport. The Hollands, I believe, had been attending the circus. I told them the dike had broken. On finding that it would be impossible to get the truck into Vanport on this road, I turned around and went down Union Avenue to the intersection and took the underpass that led to the road in front of the Pacific Livestock Exposition and turned left to enter Vanport by Force Avenue. I drove the truck to the railroad track and had to stop (about 4:50-5:00) because the water had covered Force Avenue up to within 50 yards or so of the tracks. I parked the truck by the Livestock Exposition Building and walked out on the coal pier with Carl Fisher, a student. Water at that time was up in the piles below the tressel where the coal cars were emptied. From there I could see houses floating around, some of them appearing to move as fast as 10-20 miles per hour. Within a few minutes, probably around 5:00-5:10 p.m., a truck pulling a trailer with a boat, the Yaquina Bay drove up. This was a coastguard boat with a crew of three. I offered my services to the crew, but the chief said he wanted to save space for picking up survivors.

I then got in the truck and drove to Denver Avenue, turned right and went down about even with the KGW tower. Here from Denver Avenue I watched the houses floating around, saw one building with about six people on it, saw two men swim or wade in from about 50 yards out.

I did not at any time see any persons disappear in the water, in fact the only ones I remember seeing in the water were these two men. The way the buildings were floating and the sudden rise of the water made me think that the loss of life would be high. I thought at this time that there would be at least 500 lives lost. After I had been there on Denver Avenue for about 5-10 minutes, the KGW tower collapsed. Later I learned from the newspaper that the tower collapsed at 5:21 p.m. cutting KGW off the air. A fleet of traction busses were coming out via Union Avenue coming up Denver picking up Vanport survivors, making a U-turn on Denver and going back on Denver. When I saw the truck couldn’t be used for picking up survivors, I turned it around to return to town by Union Avenue. Near the intersection over Union and Denver, I saw a family of two adults and three children walking. I asked them to ride and they gladly climbed in the back of the truck. I took them overtown to the Clyde Hotel somewhere near 10th and Stark. Then I drove out 2900 NE Knott to see if Ferne and the children had arrived safely. I knew that they had reached Denver Avenue as I had seen them on the way out but wanted to be sure that they had not tried to return to Vanport.

We left practically everything in our apartment. Sautrday, May 29, I had taken the rugs, three pieces of living room furniture, pictures and some other odds and ends to the house we had purchased eariler as 111 NE Floral Place. Our best pieces of furniture, a grand piano and a Philco refrigerator were left in the Vanport apartment.