M: This is an interview with [Poli~eJ Chief Robert Ault in Estes Park, Colorado.

I am in his office. The date is September 8, 1976, and my name is David r4c­

Comb. We~re talking basically about your role in the Big Thompson. What

happened to you and your department in Estes Park. So let me start off

at the beginning. When did gqu first hear that there was trouble in the

Canyon? 5{"

A: Well, the night of the 31"' I went to Fort Collins to attend a class reunion,

25-year class reunion for Fort Collins High School at the Country Club. And

we were, of course, in the middle of that when all of this flood broke and

until later on that .next morning, completely oblivious to what was going on.

~le hadn • t heard anything there .•.

Somebody said that there was a. flood w1rrning out, but, beyond that,

since we have heard these time and ag_ain, we didn't pay a lot of attention.

Everybody was busy meeting everybody else, and we hadn't seen each for 25

years or so. We went out and had breakfast together a bunch of.us.

About 4:30 I decided to come on home. I was going to take Sunday off.

Well, Sunday is my day off. I was just going to relax and take it easy that

day. It must have been right close to 5:00. I drove from Collins down to

Loveland and was going to come up 34.

And east, well, west of Loveland, on near the Royal ($Qs Station I ran

into the roadblock, first roadblock. And I talked with a couple of people

there and finally a state patrolman I knew came through from the command

post. He filled me in quickly, and I went on up to the command post. I

was in my civilian clothes and car.

I drove up to the command post where I ran into Sheriff Watson and

Captain Thomas and the State Patrol. They were just then setting up the

command post and had designated a couple of spots just on down the road from

2

the Merri-Ax there for helipo~t~ .•

And they assisted me in ~oing some che.cking as to which roads were

open and how I would get back ,to. E.stes Park which I then did. I took off

and went south out of Lovelan4 a,nd_ctown along--north to Lyons and up High­

way 7 which was open. [HighWC!.Y.l ,36 was washed out in that one spot.

M: They're sti 11 working on 1 t .•.

A: Yes. They had to ••.• oh, it W.B:s a g.as.h, golly, probably 100 feet long

.and 30 to 50 feet deep. It va;ried, depending on the terrain there. But I

got here about 6:20 in the rno)"ni.ng Sunday Morning. I came immediately here

to the building and learned . ,• • ""ell, l saw all the people who had to have

a place to stay were in the rnu:nic,ip~l. buil.ding here, and they were sleeping.

Some were eating; some of theJl!,. wal ~ing_ around.

But, the first thing we d.id t~en was to contact the American Legion.

Well, a combination of things •.. ,Roadblocks were our responsibility initially.

To block off this end of 36 and t~.is. end of Highway 34, so we took over the

roadblocks then. Put our people on them., a~d that relieved ••• the State

didn't have any people up here. at .that point •.. And the Sheriff's Office

obviously was very busy.

And then I had the added ,respons_ib,iity of being Civil Defense Director

to provide shelter and all kinds o.f ai.d. to these people that were coming in,

coming optout of the Canyon, b,eing .res~ued by helicopter. Some were corning

here~ Some were going to LoveJ.and.

And later on, of course, this .,changed, and we had some people that had

to be brought back from Lovela~.d to. her,e •. But right initially, we had to

take the people out of the rnun_i_c_ip_al b.ui,lding and put them in the American

Legion which was a little more_ roomy •. Plu.s we had ••••

M: let me ask you something a~ rut t~_is, okay? Did you have any kind of a dis-

:: ·'. ·: ~ . 3

aster plan or any sort of prepa_ra,tion. for anything 1 ike that?

A: Not per se.

M: ·well, you have police traini_ng •.

A: But nothing written down in ,a 9,l~ideline. I know who the people are to

contact to get what I want don_e h_ere. \4e' re sma 11 enough, you knov;.

But if I have a problem w.ith qetting ~ransportation for someone or

several someones, then I can ~al.l _a couple of people, and I can get trans­

portation. I'm also on the Bo_ard for the Salvation Anny which gives us

some funding. I'm also in con:~act with the clergy in our area. I can go

to them and get aid. We also _have the Community Human Resource Center.

Frank Christensen is direcuCJr .. ofthat. That's through the County. That

opens up many doors for aid. _Of _alJ ~inds. State level on down.

M: Okay. But there was no pr~-conc~ption of _a major disaster then. Nobody

gave you training in flash flo.ocl rel_ief three months ago.

A. No. No.

M: Nothing 1 ike that, but as il pol i<;.e chief_, you do have resources that YJ~

can cllloou. That's what you'r:e ~ayi_ng •. _Red Cross, •

/

A: Resources and much expertis_~.

M: Salvation Army and the chu~<;.hes, .•

A: Red Cross.

. ~ .

M: Are there any volunteer orga.nizations.? .

A: Oh, yes. Most of these are vol.unt~e~.

M: Any p.olice volunteer organi.~ations?

A: We don't have a volunteer gr:oup 11~~ the Sheriff's Office.

M: Like Leo had a posse.

A: Yes. We don't have llhat. _So we .Just have our main force. I intend to put that

together eventually, but we're. nQt-:-.equipment-wise and so forth--we're not ready /

4

yet.

M: Okay. And, when you were qriving back up here on Highway 7, what were you

thinking about?

A: Well, I was awful tired. I wasn,'t thinking a whole lot. I was mainly.

just get there, and let's see .<w.hat we got going. That's

M: Then you come in and your municipal .building is loaded with people.

A: Yes. It's full of people, and theyneed all kinds of things.

M: So then you have to organize that.

A: The gals from the municipal building came down off-duty, and they did a fan­

tastic job of getting food anc! blankets and different things to make these

people as cojfirtable as possiJ>le.

M: What was your communications net,work, 1 ike at that time, when you came in?

A: Extremely harrassed. We couldn't shut .off and just go to a channel by our­

selves. We had to cope with -t;he valley traffic which comes in on us just

terrible and, of course, we hit them hard, too. Trying to sandwich in our

traffic with theirs was quite a problem, and the girls did a tremendous job.

They were heavily loaded day and n,ight--24 houn a day--for that first

week. Just something terrible.. Or, nearly a week, because it was--! can't

remember for sure whether it was Wednesday or Thuadday--the Boulder Com­

munication Center came up, and they set up at Seven Queens which is up, oh

about four miles south of Estes on Highway 7.

They•re on a 450 band, and they have to have line-of-sight, but they

set up high so they could get out. They also had the Z50 frequency which

we're on ••• the Sheriff's Office, we, and the State. Which put us into

connection with ••• cotmlunication with them.

And then, of course, they could conmunicate with the colmland center at

Loveland which was moved from where I saw it on back then to the Water Con-

5

servancy 81strict which was a :f.~n.til_St.i,c location for down there.

M: Telephone lines were out, 1;,o.o? .

A: Our telephone, main tele.pho11e lin.e •. ran: down to Big Thompson, And, of course,

it went out and that shut off ,a,ll l,ong-distance communication in this area.

We had 1 oca 1 phones. Ev~rythi.ng o.ut of here was dead, except for

radio. Well, that necessitat~d, th~n, a bunch of these CBers kicked in

right away, and that helped ou_t. , .I •m al.so on the Board of Directors of the

CB Club here, so we had some of _tho.se P.eople. But they put together their

situation without my saying a word to them. That just automatically happened.

M: You might say a little more. abo,ut CBers because, you know, the ham operators

have kind of a tradition of he,lpin_g in emergencies, but the CBers are some­

thing new.

A: Yes. And we had some initial p_r:o.ble~~JS wi't:h it. Not so much from the base

operators but from the people _,in. 1;he f:iel.d calling in misinfonnation to the

base. And the base people, o~ .. co.urse, were ptatting that out and it was

wrong, and they were getting a1_1 kin.ds of .mis1nfonnation out.

But I made a call to onepf o~r big bases, and she immediately changed

that and started tightening up Qn the infonnation that came in and doing a

little bhecking on it before s.ne, Jn t,qrn, put it back out on land line or

CB.

M: Was there a headquarters set up_ t:or CB her~? Or, I mean in Estes Park?

A: Well, we had a unit outside. _tha.t. went to. some of the bases that were the big

bases out. And, just as soon as ._they cQuld get here, the National Guard,

they had their big radios goin,.g. And then we had several hams. We have

several ham operators 1n the a.~.a .. that live here and that • s there.

In fact, I have a sergean..t wor~fng for me that • s a ham operator. Buty

they got together, and they put .this .thing ~ogether just real well.

6

They got together, and we had)n,d,r~ ham o,pe,ra~ors in the area than you could

shake a stick at. But they we,r,~, ~a.k1_ng. turns, taking infonnation from •••

well, let me inject here. Abou.t the same time, we realized that the Arner-~ ~ . . ' . . . ..

ican leg.ion Building was not l,a.rg_e eno.ugh to take care of all the people

that were coming in so we then _ _moved it over .to the high school. I called

in some of these peop~iiwho could co.rrelate--school officials, clergy, Red

Cross ••••

M: Salvation Anny?

A: Well, the Salvation Anny was_ mqre sile.nt than they were in loveland. They

were here picking up bills and..that kind of thing, but they weren•t here in

uni fonn, en masse, but they we.re wo.rking beh1 nd the scenes, so to speak.

M: So you called these people ~oget.h~r.

A: We had a brief meeting and set.t:hat high school up with all the people that

we were going to need for all __ o,f ~he facets to be taking place in there and

of course, the man that had th.e _buil di_ng corre 1 a ted with the government

agencies, the federal agencie~.' .thatwere coming in and a place for them

to set up.

Well, they eventaally set_ up i,n. the g)ITI up there and, of course, there

was more than enough room. CQ_ntacted .the phone company. They set up phones

for these people to use. The ,mi.~ro~ave. then came in, a very small one.

That got us out then pretty w~U wit,h seeeral lines, and the whole thing

then started to come together anq really work as a good solid unit.

M: So where it really came together. t,h~n was in the high school?

A: Yes. The high school was the ul.ti!ftate. Then there was food, there was

places to sleep. A kitchen. .w~ ha~ the it1f~nnation center, we had cor­

relation between this center ~.n.d .th,e.. ~oveland center for the location of

missing persons.

.: 7

M: Was that your responsibil i~y? Th_os.~ l.i~_ts of _missing person calls?

A: Well, it was ultimately min~. 1B,ut Jt w~s handled by FathereKing and vol un­

teers that he had working with him •. l:ocal clergy. And the building, every­

thing that had to do with the _builqing was handled by Gordon Rudel, the

principal of t~e high school. . _Trqnsportation was turned over to the con­

tractor of the school buses u~ here--Bill Hintz.

M: Makes sens-e.

A: They had volunteers who had .four.-w.heel drive units that could go anywhere

they wanted to go or needed to. go •.. And bring people in. Take food out.

They escorted the Red Cross p~opl~ down t.he Canyon to get food down. All

kinds of things. After the a'fr. lit:t was done, and you could get down in

there by vehicle. Then it ope.ne.Q up,_ 9f .course, more doors. Initially,

everything was done by chppper,. _

M: When was the high school pu~ togther:?. You went through the legion Hall.

I think, initially, at least rr:orn what I've read, there was some stuff

going up at the KOA campground even. Some of the people were drifttigg into

there. Then into the Legion Hall and the high school.

A: The KOA campground was pretty w~ll washed.

M: Was it?

A: I don't know what all transpired there, to be honest with you. The high

school opened up Wednesday. I_t took two hours from the time we had our

meeting until the high school wa~ fun,ctioning. And that included telephones.

M: That's pretty good.

A: The phone comttany really got. on the sti_ck for us there and really did a

beautiful jo.b. Of course, the,x.respond to this kind of stuff. It just

takes time. Time was the only .th.1.ng that slowed them down. And not much

of that. Because they drove unita. up with telephones in them, mobile tele-

8

phones, and we used those for ,e..m,~r.ge_ncy mes_s-ages.

M: How long did that kind of overload on the communication system last? Till . •' ' ~. ,, .:. ' ~ ' ·.• ' . . .

W.ednesday or so, you think?

A: Yes. They could better tell you. I don't remember exactly v.1hen they finally

got that opened up. It was up and down, .up and down. Of course~ now we are

running on a large microwave unit that's been set in, a hundred some lines·

on it.

A: The other one, I think, only ha.d about 12-15 lines.

M: What happens to your other police work while this is going on?

A: Well, I made a report to the City Council, and I humorously injected this

statement that we had a mora tori urn on crime, and it seemed to pay off. ' And

that's just about the way it worked. We had our regular crew on. t"e had

cut our strength down, of course, to one man OFt the street and he handled

the calls thaa we did get. But we didn't get too many. Things on that end

really slowed down to almost a standstill.

M: There really wasn't that much of a prob 1 em then with the po 1 ice work, 1r1h 1 ch

is kind of nice.

A: Really helped out.

M: In something like this is there a danger of looting?

A: Yes, there was some lloting. Of course, I don't know how much they had. I

know they had some, but how serious it was, I don't know.

M: And, from what you observed of the people, \'Jas there hysteria-~panic--shock?

A~ Obviously, shock. Very little hysteria that I was aware of or that I've

be.en made aware of. Primarily .shock which is ever continuing, obviously.

The county has sent up the Mental Health gr<>up now, and for the next year or

so they're going to have that problem to work with and to hppefully work out

positively. ·with the kids and the older people. We've had some heart

attacks over it.

9

We've had ••• well, I k.now ~t: .one, p(!rticular individual who is just •

he had a stroke over ft. He g_qt, i;hro~gh_. th_e, .initial flood. He went through

the flood, he and his wife. ~n,cJ.,. a.fter e~erything was over, and their house

was st111 there a·nd they were Jlet.t1.ng f,t .cle,~ned up and the carpet back in,

getting back to nonnal, then aJm"re,n.t,ly the strain of it was just too much.

He had a stroke and now he's f.n .. th,e .hosp_ital_. Won't eat. Things are just

really bad for him, but we're .9:oJng ,tQ, _g_et some of this, we know.

How much we don't know, b_ut SC!.!Ile .of .th.at.. So many of them are starting to

rebuild and get back going aga,_in .•. J.u.st JJk~ they do in other disaster areas.

M: A question has come up in t.~e ne"{s.p~per~ ~nd elsewhere. Is there any kind of

a warning system that could ha,v~e .. be_e_n .u.s~d, or might be used in the future for

something like this, that you"c:;~n .thin~ of~

W: Well, the best warning sys~~ i.~- Q~.ly .a.s .90()d as the, psychological response

foam the individual. " -' ~ ...

M: Right.

A: And people, as fs the case .a.nywf1e.re YQU. _have Q~e of these situations, are dis­

believing. This can't be truE!,· .. This .. c.a.n't .be happening. This couldn't have

happened. Even the people who, .U.v_e,d the~ and went through it and went back

later to view it couldn't beli,~~e, _how bad _it was.

They knew it was bad. T~ey ~-~ und.er sh_ock. They didn't realize every­

thing that was going on about ,t,h~ •. but. :they c.oul~n•t believe the significance,

the tremendous power and magni,tu.•e of t,he thif'!g until later on when they saw

not just veh1 c 1 es, but homes , .~i.9. b.om~s • .J,ust washed away 11 ke mne 1 og s or

twigs, going down that canyon~, .. , .. ,. . .

And, of course, anything .. in t~ei.r pat,h ~uld _be just wiped away, not only

with the force of the water but the force of the debris in the water. Butane ~~ y .., ••. .., M • ~ ' • I .

tanks you could understand ar~. ~~t.l"~,ely _he,avy, but they're buoyant, and that's

10

a lot more explained t.han a h~g_e hQme or a c.ar or truck or something.

And, of course, then you get down .to things as small as human bodies,

and they just take a tremendous, _bea.tin;g •. But you get an act of God thing 1ike

this. It just puts you back in y,our true perspective of where you are as a

human being. We're really no~ a_s b_ig and tough as we think we are.

M: I reckon. You lost one of your_ officers down there.

A: Yes.

M: Where? At Raltonia, \"'asn • t. it?

A: Right there at the Waltonia area. I .

As I understand it, he was coming back l,up·-.

and 9'0t that far and got the ~o~d somehow, I have no idea, that the water was

at a flood level. And he star,t_ed ge_tti_ng B~BBle off of the low area an,d up

in the hills.

M: Was he on duty?

A: No, he was off duty. It was one of his days off. Out ofuunifonn. But I

got a newspaper article here y_e.sterday, f~om the Colorado Springs paper. And

they mentioned the fact that h_e was responsible for some 60 people, getting

them out, getting them to a pqi_nt where they could be reacued later on.

. M: Then he was caught by the ~ater •.

A: He didn't get out in time.-. THe last they saw of him, he was hanging on to

a light pole and, of course, one of tho_se big light poles, wooden ones,

snapped just like a toothpick. Tha.t's the last they saw of him until his

body was found.

·1\11; But 1 t seems 11 ke the ••• a. lot Qf the warning that woat on of people,

i I

when they did get warning, wa~. by someone like that, rather than by telephone.

A: Yes. Well, we had several state,_patrQlmen down in the area. Our dispatcher,

let's aee. I think I'we got a, r.eport Qn that, the initial report. I gave

a report to .the City Council, and we _put togther some infonnation concerning

the job we had to do right of~. t.he bat._. I don't know what I did with that.

11

I had it right here.

M: That must have been the report t~~t was ~ecorded in the newspaper, the

Trail Gazette.

A: Unde.r the minutes.

M: It wasn't under the minutes.. Ther~ was a newspaper article that mentioned

some of these things.

A: Local?

M: Yes. I think a reporter wro.te it up.

A: Anyway it had to do with times, who got the initial call, and wbat the call-­

it started over a rock slide •. And, of course, we've had rock slides before.

All of the bits of information that went out initially were nothing ne\•1.

We've dealt with those; I was sta.tioned up here on a patrol myself back in

'57, '58, and '59, and I went out I don't know how many rock slides.

M: So a report of a rock slide itself wbul dn' t be any news i tern.

A: That in itself didn't give any real significance to anything. But as time

went along, and then they used their P.A. systems to try to call the peo~le

as they went down the highway .and cover as many people as they couldgfilyou

know. Some of those people probably didn't hear it. There's probably a 100

reasons why some of those peop.le did not respond. And you can understand

it, you know. If they didn't hear .the whole thing, or they thought it was

somebody playing with a piece of equipment, you know this is really tragic,

but those things happen.

M: One last kind of question on the. warning business. Some people have told

me that there might have been used the sort of volunteer fire department

network. From the Loveland end there was some sort of time.

A: You mean the sirens?

M: No, there was some sort of a radio network to alert the volunteer fireman.

12

Like a scanner or something. .~n.d that they_ might have been able to get on

that. Then these peopie coul~have warned .thei_r neighbors. I don't know

whether that's possi-ble.

A: I don't know how that works down th~re. I know that it works that way here

with those who have the receiv,ers. We can aall some 25 men that way. Now

if they have the same thing thro,ugho.ut .the canyon, and those work down there,

that wouli be a godd way to do; it •.

M: It would be a possib1ltty.

A: Yes.

M: Okay. There's something I'ye read,, too,, about the Olyitltlpa Dam out here. ·That

the Bureau of land Management _sh.ut that water off. Is that right?

A: The fellows working the powerho4se that night ••. course all that is con­

jrolled electronically and hyd~aulically. You push a button in the powerhouse

and it raises or lowers the ga_tes, whatever they need. And the power went

out and when that happened, of. course, they had to run down there, which is

quite a trip in itself and low.er and shut those gates by llbdd. And those

guys did a fantastic job in hel.pi_ng to sibside the amount of water that was

going down that canyon from tha,t s()urce.

M: Yes. So they just cut that off •..

A: So they went down there on .the1r own. an_d completely closed the gates. So ·

there was no more aater coming out of the dam at all •. They stayed shut for

a long time.

M: The water just ••• what? Backe.d .UP. i.nto the reservoir?

A: Yes. Well, they ca·n control it a.ll the .way from Granby over.

M: That's right. It's all part of theiBig Thompson system.

· A: The Bu.reau of Reclamation.

M :· You know there was a rumor that. some of the peo.le down in the Canyon heard

13

that that dam had broken.

A: Yes. In fact, went out over th~news media, as I understand it, that the

Olumpus Dam had bG11ken.

M: Is that right? I'ae been trying to figure out where that rumor started. But

people were hearing about it a_s th,ey were picked up by helicopters.

A: Well, they thought that because pf that ,nuch water, it had to hvae started

someplace with that magnitude~ And it wasn't true. You know, they had b1o

gullies initially up here.

There was just a lot of water fell from the sky. Let's put it that way.

And as it accumulated as it wa_s. coming off the mountain and was just running

down, coming into a main body then, and as those smaller bodies would merge,

then, of course, right there below Olympus Dam where the two canyons come

together, two valleys, they m~rged into the Big Thompson River and, of course,

then as that went down and all. of these little gullies and creeks that \'Jere

already existing, and then theybbuilt up .off the mountainside there, and those

came down and went into the Bi.9 Thompson, and they contributed all the way

along the way that way.

M: It would probably be easy to thi.nk. t~at that dam was breaking, then.

A: Yes. For them. Where would llllat muc_h water come from up in there? And it·

didn't come from there, obvio~s1y , __ but they thought it did. And they couldn't

be11eve tt when they got ltack up here, and everything here in the valley was

green and beautiful and as it wa~. I~ was hard to believe for them.

M: Did your dual position of Dire<;tQr .of Civil Defense have much to do with this?

Did that give you access to resou·rces that you would not nonnally have?

A: No. I had those resources before I .was ever named Civil Defense Directory,

That's just part of our business. It's part of my tllusiness to know who I

can call on. to get ahold of something.

14

M: And was there a Civil Defens,e s~ruc_t~re that you did call on then? For help?

You mentioned the Red Cross.

A: Yes. We went through the procedures then of • • • once the Red Cross got

in here, of course, they lll\ve a .de.finite format and that was used by them

J '

all the way through. I used them and many others. But I didn't just use them

exclusively. I used a lot of .People to do specific jobs.

M: So it wasn't just a ••• it wasn't a Civil Oefe.nse network or structure.

A: Primarily, no. It was a community effort. Totally corrmunity effort. ~1e

had more volunteers than we could use. It was very discouraging to have to

say, ~let me have your name and phone number, and if we need you, we'll call

you ... And I put an article in the paper to try and let those people know.

We unders•and that by volunteering, you at least cared enough. And it's so

hard to tell somebody, "No, we can't use you." But if we did, we'd have so

many people.

And as it was, they took the masses of people they had and broke them

into shifts. The people out at the school did this. They took care of

the whole thing out there. An.d it just worked beautifully. People on tele­

phones. They'd sit so many hours on the phone, answering calls, taking calls,

etc., and relaying the information they had into the phone to this person.

They would do that for a certain period of time, then they'd go off, som~­

body else would come in.

M: So there was some use of the volunteers.

(BREAK IN THE TAPE)

M: Okay, you're back on. You mentioned ~the volunteers and how you had to turn

some of those back. What about sightseers, people, curiosity seekers, people

that •t want to nose around?

A: Those stilrted Monday. And the problem that the Sheriff's Office had with

:the passes and the peeple wanting to go down there and wanting to see their

15

home. You know, tremendous co,n.cern f~r not only their property but their

loved ones. It became a real __ treiT!endous hassle for Leo and his people and

so then the Sheriff's Office •.•• I presume this came out of Sheriff Wat­

son's office ••• I don't know, but they carne up with this pass idea and

that was, of course, refined as they went a 1 ong.

The type of pass, the duration_ of the pass, deciding who could go and

who couldn't go, because the s_ightseers coming in, then, from Monday after­

noon, Tuesday on, was just fantastic. Not just the ones who had business

there, but the ones who just ~anted to see, you koow, the curiosity people,

made a tremendous load on the people on the roadblocks.

Add,bbefore that, a burden on the Sheriff's Office to allow the passes

to whomever and, of course, this adds. to the pressure.

M: Okay. But do you take any role in that kind of extra peoblem? After all,

you and the Sheriff's Office are right here in the same biilding. Obviously,

you work closely together.

A: Yes. I didn't get in on that ~tall. That was handled through the Sheriff's

Office.

. M: They •ere able to get . . . . A: We just furnished them a place to set up and to talk to people. People that

come here, you see, and they could be handled accordingly.

M: I guess what I'm dttving at is th.at before disasters, different official

units and agencies are often s.omewhat isolated and do not cooperate particu­

lar)y. Sometimes there's inte.ragency jealousy, such as between a fire de­

partment,and a police departm~n,t. The disaster comes, and everybody works to­

gether, and they share duties, an.d they kind of do what needs to be done,

no matter whose jurisdiction i_'t; is. So the.re' s kind of a lowering of those

jurisdictional lines.

·. ' .. ·.

16

A: That's the way this worked.,

M: I'm curious about what happ_~ned up h~r~.

A.: See, these two roadblock positions were outside the city limits.

M: Okay, and you guys manned them.

A: And we manned them until the state could get enough people up . And

the National Park &telped. They had people down here manning them •• The

Sheriff's Office had people mann_ing them as much ethey could, but they had

to use those people elsewhere as the demand from the public became more to cut

off those positions from the general public. That demand became larger.

And, as it did, then it caused full-time people.

Now the one out on Devil's Gulch, they manned totally themselves all the

time. We didn't get in on that one. We just took care of 36 and 34. And

then, of course, when 36 opened up that relieved us there, and then we went

to 34 which helped greatly.

Well, then when the class from CLETA [Colorado law Enforcement Training

Academy] of Colorado State Patrolmen recruits graduated, then they sent a

bunch of them up with supervisors to control the situation and let them run

the roadblocks from there.

M: I suppose about that time then you could kind of pull back to your city limits

then.

A: The minute we were relivved, th~n we just went back to normal.

M: About when was that? \-lhat day, you think?

A: Oh, golly, I can't remember. Must have been, let's see, Monday, Tuesday,

Wednesday ••• 36 opened up on Wednesday. Must have been Thursday or Friday,

eight in there.

M: So about a week. Almost, but not quite.

A: Abo••· NOt· quite .a we~k.

17

M: So then you were kind of back tQ nonnal_.

A: As far as getting our manpower r:igh'(:, but we were hating it was like

everybody else. You've got so much tension that you've got to rotate your

shifts and get these guys some time off. ~lhi ch they were doing pretty we 11

along the way.

M: Right, they were working pretty long hour:s. So they've had some long hours

in there, and so you got to rest them.

A: We rotated our guys. They never did work a 12-hour day. They worked 10. Of

course, they work 10 hours regularly, four days a week.

M: So, they continued the 10-hour shifts but did get the time off, then. Is

that what yourte saying?

A: Got some time re 1 i ef.

M: That has to continue for almost a week and then you're back to the normal

operation again.

A: Nonnal from the standpoint of the schedule. But not normally from the psycho­

logical standpoint.

M: That's a good point. You might say something about that. From the psy­

chological point what does this do to your department?

A: For our people, especially the girls who were sitting in there in a small

room ••• they don't get out _like the officers do. And they hear all these

things, and when they're off, they hear another story which straightens them

out. But when you've got people coming in who are very concerned ••• many

of them are in shock ••• the.se girls have to handle those shocked people.

And, in so doing over an 8-hour period, they really get uptight.

That's a lot of tension. Trying to be understanding to them and use

compassion, trying to work with them and having them fifhting them all the

time.

18

You know -- "Why can't I ,go down the Canyon?" Hell, "So and So says

you can't go." "Well, I'm gcillgg anyway/" This kind of thing just really

made things tense. Calling in an.d chewing the girl out on the radio because

she didn't do something. And,, of course, she didn't have anything to do with

it. "Why can't we get out?" "Why can't the phone lines be hooked up?"

She'd day, "Well, the telephone lines are being repaired and it takes time

to do this and try to be patient and bear \'lith us."

Sometimes that's not enough. The explanation. Plus she's deluged with

phone calls and she hasn't gottime to sit and talk to each individual on a

one-to-one basis. So then she cuts them off to answer someene else, and they

think she's mad at them. They take it very personally, and it really gets to

be a mess.

M: Okay. Your officers are going to catch some of that, even though they're out.

A: Yes, they caught it on the roadblocks. And, it -- as far I know, \'Je never

did haveea situation where they had to physically remove somebody. They

could talk it out, send them back in here to get a pass, or sometliing. And

if they couldn't get a pass, of course, then that was it. A few of them

tried. We didn't have any arrests Qver it.

M: There's a phenomenon in disasters where the victims are very grateful right

at first. A couple of days go by, they get over their shock, and they get

to thinking, "My God, I've lost my $50,000 cabin; there's no flood insurance, 11

and so on. So then they become somewh~t bitter, and they're liable to start

blaming people, and the po1ice often get.it. Is there any of that kind of

phenomenon going on?

A: Some, but not a whole lot.

M: So you really didn't catch much of that?

A: No. We aren't getting blamed for a whole lot of that at atl.

M: One 1 ast question about what happen~d. .You ta 1 ked about the impact on your

19

department, psychological and ,the $hifts and all the work they did.

What about on the communilty of Estes Park? Now, I've read a lot about

the economic impact, and I don't ,know Nhether the tourism has dropped off or

whether that's really true or not, but there's an economic impact. Is there

a ps)gbological impact also? You might comment on both. First of al19

. is there an economic impact?

A: Well, obviously, we were affected economically.

M: ls the tourism down from here?

A: lt dropped for about a week, give or take a day or two. But we '11 know better ·

When we get our sales tax figures in. We'll know \vhat that figure is.

Right now, we don't. At least, I don't. That obviously is a factor.

We, being a tourist-oriented community, rely heavily on the tourist

dollar and my budget, of cours.e, comes from that tourist dollar to operate,

as does any other city amenity. It depends upon whom you talk to whether

they had a tremendous impact or whether the impact was less.

Obviously, the motels were affected. Some restaurants weee; some

weren't. Depends on who you talk to and what they tell you. But I think

generally, overall, we were hit pretty hard for almost a week, three to

five days.

Whe Where people were ••• we were just having a battle trying to keeo

the news media away from &hre and notified as to what our situation \'las. They

felt that the whole town was washed away. And people who had scheduled va­

cations here, of course, cancelled out.

And to what extent, of cqurse, like I said, we don't know until we get

the sales tax figures. Some of those • • • we got that straigntened away

quite shortly, and then they started coming in again, up Highway 7.

M: Right. You got the signs changed.

,. 20

A: Yes. The Highway Department did. a great Job, changed the signs through the

velley all the way up and ove~ t~e o.ther side.

M: The Governor came in to spend some vacation.

A: Yes, he spent a weekend here and enjoyed himself. Anddid a lot of hiking

in the hills, mostly in the Park. .But had this situation ortgi·n_ated i·n· the

Park,. then we would have been hurt.. Bu.t, as it was, it started just east

of the Park in the Estes Park·va11ey, and it didn't hurt the town any.

M: Is there any kind of psychological community impact. that you can detect? Or

is there such a thing? ~1ay not even be such a thing. An attitude or a . ?

A: A strong impact of "What can I do?" By and large, hands down, 11 Is there any-,

thing I can do?" ''If there's .anything I can do, please call me." From

everybody and anybody.

M: So, as you said, earlier, a community response to this.

A: Tremendous conmunity response. No, they just woke up, and they were there.

And, of course, \'le had communications, and the corrmunications flowed, and

this was made available, that was made available. All we had to have then

or all I needed then were people to coordinate these amenities and put it

together and go. No thought about "Who's going to pay for the gas in my

four-wheel drive unit to go pi.ck these people up?~

There is concern about getting loaned generators back. This kind of

thing. Loaned property. Because they don't want to abeerb that loss and

they shouldn't have to. It shou.ld be just returned back as soon as it's

through. But that kind of thi,ng, just on and one and on, and still! The

dema·nds, of course, are 1 ess and 1 ess and 1 ess, but that doesn • t mean that

the people who have the faciliti.e.s are not still willing to loan them out

or to make everything available.

M: Okay. And how long will it .take to get over this? Six months?

,.!., . :

21

·· A: Years. Some people will n~.'!er .,9~t "Qver:: .it .•. , Th.ose who were afffcted down

the Canyon will never forget tt.~ .. O.f?:vi.~usly •. lJJose who were here for a

ti·me, it will be something th~t Jl'.ll. ,ta~e y~ars to get over.

M: How about you and your deP~ttme..n;~? . .l~ ... it. going to have any lasting effects

on you? ~· ....... .

A: Oh, I don't thitlk so. Oth~t:' th~~n. ~he f.i\Ct ~hat I have a wanner feeling;

I've e.lways had a warm feeling; J~r,_ t~.e. J?,e.ople of this town. They've been

behind me a hundred percent. J, J~e.l. clos:er: to many of them than I ever did.

I know there were some animost~i~~ _that were existent prior to this, and

they disappeared and are still~ .. v.1r._tu~1Jy .9.0n~ because of the work effort

tog:ethe:r to get something done. .fQ,r, .~.omel)Qd.Y, e.lse. And those are always

pluses.

M: Interesting. Maybe we ough1; tq e.n,d .t.h.e~.

A: Good.

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