It was a spectacular Saturday morning in June in the little communities of southeastern Idaho:
moms were hanging out the laundry,
dads were putting in the garden,
kids were out bike riding or mowing the lawn....
because it was a perfect MORNING.
A radio station owner/operator from Rexburg decided to take a look at the newly completed Teton Dam built in Fremont County, Idaho. What he saw as he stood atop the dam, terrified him...
he saw a leak, and as he watched, the leak continued to get bigger.
And somehow, with no cell phones, texting, IM, word spread rapidly that morning the old-fashioned way - neighbor to neighbor or phone calls - and the word was simply,
"Get to higher ground - NOW!"
Sometimes I think back on that day all those years ago, and I am so grateful to Heavenly Father that the event happened in the MORNING, not during the middle of the night, as it is highly likely many, many more lives would have been lost.
I know that many disasters occur and lives are lost, and disasters happen at inconvenient times, but in this case, because of the timing of the flood, people were able to be warned and get to safety. (Three of our four children would have been sleeping downstairs and possibly would have been swept away or drowned, as our basement was totally destroyed.)
That this happened in the daytime, I will be eternally grateful.
During that summer of 1976, most residents in that little corner of the world, spent their days mucking out mud and debris.
Thank you to the many, many, many people who came by the busloads (mainly from Utah, but other areas also), to lighten our loads and to give us hope, as they stood beside us shoveling, cleaning, dumping, hauling, helping.
(If you would like to read an accurate account of that day's events, you can go to Wikipedia, or look at this first-person account here:)
The dam flood happened many years ago, and I certainly don't think of it often, but when I do, I am filled with gratitude for the many little blessings that we each felt.
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