“The water was up to the eaves of the bathhouse at the beach. Glenn Bandelin, an attorney, brought his boat down at the end of First Street, and I think he also brought his boat to the corner of what is now the highway and First Street, right at McFarland’s house. So we have a lot of water!”
Jim Parsons, Jr. interviewed by Nancy Renk in 1996.
Nature visited northern Idaho with one of its record floods in 1948, while the BPA redesigned the Albeni Falls dam and residents of the Pend Oreille region cooled their opposition. By late spring of 1948, the lake level had reached nearly 2,072 feet, making it the second worst flood on record. Only the flood of 1894 was higher, cresting at 2076 feet.
Flooding occured trhoughout the Columbia Basin in 1948, an event that bolstered arguments for damming the waterway and its tributaries. In Sandpoint, residents listened more receptively when the Army Corps of Engineers next proposed to build a dam at the falls.
Jim Parsons, Jr. talks about the flood of 1948.
