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The
Heppner Flood of 1903
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our Flood Commemoration... Purchase
the 1903 Flood Video
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Welcomed! For more information, please
contact the Flood Committee at 676-5407
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Sunday,
June 14, 1902
It
had been a day of rest in the prosperous
community of Heppner, Morrow County,
with a population of some 1500
persons. Late afternoon found the
householders at dinner or supper, as it was
then; or perhaps the dishes had been cleared
away, and the families were preparing for
evening service at church.
There
was storm in the air...
The
storm had broken about 5:15 p.m. as
witnessed by the fact that the town clock
stopped at that time, evidently because of
the electrical storm in the air. There
was no apparent damage to the clock, however,
as it ran as usual after it had been started
again.
Many
of the folks were just getting ready for
church, it being Sunday evening, and the
children washed and dressed in their best
clothes. The little girls had their
hair curled and looked very nice in their
silk dresses. Many were found the next
morning literally buried in the mud.
Dark
clouds, the roll of thunder, spatters of
rain and hail. A flash of lightning stopped
the town clock at 5:16 p.m.
An
ominous roar--not thunder, not wind, a
grinding, terrifying roar-- the likes of
which the community had never heard before;
a swirling, crashing, breaking and
tearing, an onrush of leaping, darting
and tearing, crushing tumbling wall of
water. shrieks of terror, screams, moans and
anguished prayers in an indescribable
pandemonium--and the dead and dying were
buried beneath water and mud and debris, and
strewn in the underbrush at the edge of a
flood for two miles down Willow Creek. The
destruction continued one awful hour.
A
cloudburst about one mile south of the city
had piled up a wall of water 200 yards
wide--to sweep without warning down the
narrow gorge, leaving death and destruction
in its path.
Two
hundred and forty-seven bodies were
recovered. The property loss was
$350,000.
Many
lives were spared and the town was saved
from probably total destruction because of a
row of trees along the boundary of the chief
residential street. As debris piled against
the trees, the water was damned somewhat,
and was forced back into Willow Creek's
regular channel.
The
holocaust was not without its heroes, and
strange quirks of fate.
As
the onrushing of water struck the community,
Leslie Matlock, son of a former sheriff of
Morrow County, and Bruce Kelly, sensing
potential disaster for communities in the
path of the flood, started horseback and
rode 18 miles just ahead of the water,
spreading the alarm. contemporary accounts
of the flood relate that Matlock's horse
dropped dead in the course of the ride, than
he continued on a fresh horse.
Because
of the warning, ranchers on Willow Creek
below Heppner were able to drive their stock
to higher land where they were safe.
August
Lundell, Heppner, saw the flood coming in
time to race to a tree, which he climbed,
dragging his two children up with him.
A moment later their house came swirling by,
with Mrs. Lundell clinging to the wreckage. Lundell caught her and dragged her to safety
in the tree.
Portland
swung into relief work, contributing money,
clothing and supplies. A relief
station was opened in the old Bank of
British Columbia building at Front and
Ankeny Streets. J.P. O'Brien, superintendent
of the O.R.&N. Railroad, dispatched a
special relief train carrying help, empty
cars for the return of injured
survivors--and a supply of embalming fluid,
for which Heppner authorities had made
urgent appeal. A special train also
was dispatched from The Dalles, and work
crews hastened to replace and repair
railroad bridges and trackage washed out and
damaged between Lexington and Heppner.
The railroad carried all relief supplies
without charge.
Cities
and towns throughout the state, and the
Northwest, added to the relief fund and
supplies as soon as the extent of the
tragedy became known.
(by
Harold C. Donner)
(taken
from The East Oregonian, June 12, 1953)
For
more more information or to purchase a video
of this tragedy, contact Robin
Baker Krebs at:
The Morrow
County Museum
P.O.
Box 1153
444
N. Main Street
Heppner,
OR 97836
Ph:
(541) 676-5524
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