Rapid Creek Rampage

Story appeared in the July/August 1972 Extension Magazine 

By Thomas L. Quigley

For the 43,000 citizens of Rapid City, S.D., the June weekend began with only a “40 percent chance of showers or thunderstorms.” It ended with the most devastating flood in the state’s history.

The catastrophe was brought about by freak weather conditions which kept clouds hovering over the renowned (and normally beneficent) Black Hills to the west of the city.

The Black Hills Region annually attracts millions of people who camp out or drive through to gaze at the scenic panoramas, to view the area’s unique geological features, and to marvel at the granite Presidential sculptures on Mount Rushmore.

This yearly tourist traffic is the economic backbone for all the towns in the region, including Rapid City — a town of broad streets and attractive parks, and the second largest community in this prairie state.

Among the streams draining the Black Hills area is Rapid Creek which winds down to the western edge of the city where it is dammed to create a 15-acre, 5-foot-deep recreational lake. From Canyon Lake, the creek lazily meanders through the center of town.

Early that June everting, rain began to fall in the hills, sending travelers and townspeople to shelter. And the rain continued falling-steadily and heavily. Down at Rapid City, the rain was still only a forecast.

As rainwater pounded the hills, the runoff formed thousands of rivulets, which merged into running streams, which poured into the creeks, which became swollen and swift.

Sporadic rain was now hitting the city, and weather experts predicted some creekside flooding. Routine flood warnings were issued. And Rapid Creek was rising.

Meanwhile, night embraced the Black Hills and ears were tuned to the torrential roar of water racing by. Downstream, authorities were increasingly alarmed. Pressure was building up on Canyon Lake Dam. Water was running over it. And through the city, Rapid Creek was running fast and rising quickly.

Upstream, tons of water were cascading into the canyons, causing mudslides, uprooting trees, sweeping up cars and demolishing homes. The mud, trees, cars and debris were hurtled into Canyon Lake and piled up against the dam. It was nearly 11 p.m. when the dam burst-releasing millions of gallons of water. And Rapid Creek was rampaging.

With awesome violence, a wall of water ripped a four to eight block swath through the heart of Rapid City. Telephone and electric lines were downed; homes, businesses and cars were smashed.

Only lightning and eerie isles of fire from ruptured gas lines and propane tanks illuminated the hellish black night. And many people were killed.

At dawn, the city’s misery lay under a blanket of mud and a shroud of fog and drizzle. The known toll: 232 dead, about 1000 injured, thousands homeless; 700 dwellings and 500 mobile homes destroyed, 1900 buildings and 800 mobile homes damaged; some 5000 vehicles wrecked; and about 80 blocks of roadway were torn up.

Insurance officials state that only $13 million of the estimated $100 million in damage is recoverable through insurance.

Part of the flood’s death and destruction hit the five-building complex known as the Mother Butler Indian Center — four miles downstream from Canyon Lake and just a stone’s throw from Rapid Creek.

Though the physical damage at Mother Butler was quite extensive, the far greater tragedy was the death of Fr. Francis J. Collins, S.J., the Center’s pastor — a loving missionary and beloved friend to the South Dakota Sioux for nearly half a century.

While Rapid Citians were still mourning their dead, they immediately had to begin providing for the living. Naturally, the whole region had been declared a major disaster area and assistance flowed in from throughout the country.

Federal and state relief agencies, the National Guard, the Red Cross and salvation Army — all rushed to aid the flood-stricken communities.

Entire towns and countless thousands of individuals sent food, clothing, building materials and money in a remarkable and heart-warming example of brotherhood and Christian concern.

EXTENSION forwarded $10,000 in emergency aid to Rapid City Bishop Harold J. Dimmerling; and many dioceses sent in special collections taken up to help the stunned flood victims.

The bishop offered diocesan physical facilities for the recovery effort. All three city parishes served as Red Cross headquarters; St. Martin’s Academy set up a day-care center; and the cathedral school became home for-200 Mennonite Disaster Service volunteers, whose purpose is to demonstrate Christ’s teachings through their service.

The Mennonites perform clean-up tasks and short-term repairs. A number of them joined with Mother Butler’s staff, parishioners and friends in the “mucking-out” operations at the Center.

The Center had been established by the Rapid City Diocese in 1947 to aid the town’s poor Indian population. It was named in memory of the founder of Marymount College in Tarrytown, N.Y., whose alumni provided the original financial backing.

Most of the people served by the Center are Sioux Indians who came up to the city from the state’s huge reservations at Pine Ridge and Rosebud. The reservations and the Center are missions of the Jesuit Fathers, Wisconsin Province. The Daughters of the Heart of Mary also serve on the reservations and, until last year, at Mother Butler. Now the Center is staffed by three Benedictine Sisters from St. Martin’s Priory in Rapid City.

The Center complex included a rectory, a trading post, St. Isaac Jogues Church, the Mother Butler social center, and a combination convent/clinic building. Several of the frame structures were old prairie churches that were moved in over the years to meet expanding needs.

The rectory — closest to the creek and at the lowest elevation was swept away and demolished. The onrushing assault of water, mud and debris [including mobile homes] so severely ravaged the trading post and church, that they must now be torn down.

Though waterlogged and mud encrusted, both the social center and the convent/clinic are repairable. The Army Corps of Engineers estimated the structural damage at $150,000.

After learning the extent of the disaster, EXTENSION quickly responded with an additional grant of $25,000. Furthermore, the Society was instrumental in generating a $25,000 matching grant from a private foundation to the diocese for disaster relief.

Considering the physical loss caused by the deluge, one realizes that the human loss at Mother Butler could have been much greater. Because earlier that evening, many people were in the center for a social conducted by Fr. Collins. Fortunately, the people left when it became apparent that “local basement-flooding,” was likely.

Fr. Collins stayed late to do some work. His body was found by a parishioner the following morning under some debris in the kitchen.

Besides tending to his people’s spiritual needs, the heart of Fr. Collins’ ministry was that kitchen. From there, he would feed anyone who was hungry. From that building, he organized clothing drives, social events, an anti-drug program and a Sioux basketball league.

His low-income Indian parishioners could get clothing at the trading post. They received free medical care at the convent/clinic, where a nurse was on duty full time, and a volunteer doctor visited weekly.

The basement of this building was used for adult education courses, CCD classes and parish meetings. It was totally ruined. The first floor was inundated by 41 inches of muddy water. But the second floor provided a haven for the sisters, who survived the terrifying night unharmed.

“Water was everywhere, and our car floated away …  up against the high concrete retaining wall for the highway which runs past our buildings well above our ground level,” commented Sr. Eleanor Solon.

“We could see police on a section of the road that was above water; and we yelled that we were OK. We just stayed upstairs all night. We could hear screaming from house trailers which had been tossed against the church and social center, but we couldn’t help.

“After the water level dropped the next day, we still had eight inches of muddy soup on the first floor,”‘ she added, “and two of our four cars here were total losses.”

That night had been even more eventful down closer to the creek. There, Fr. Paul E. Steinmetz, a reservation missioner who was an overnight guest, managed to escape from the rectory.

Also, in the rectory that evening was Fr. Lawrence E. Edwards, Fr. Collins’ associate and a 28-year veteran among the Sioux.

“Throughout the evening, I went down to the creek to check said Edwards.

“When Fr, Collins called over to the residence, I reported that the creek was rising, but that I didn’t think it was serious … so shortly afterwards, I went to bed.

“I woke up 15 minutes later with the feeling that I was in a boat. I looked out the window — and I was in a boat!”

The house was floating down the creek and towards the highway bridge.

“It was an odd scene … half a dozen house trailers were floating alongside, as if in convoy.”

After dressing quickly with what he could find in the dark, Fr. Edwards kicked out a window to prepare for escape. As the rectory carried toward the highway, he found the situation deceptively calm-until he saw the trailers hitting the bridge and “folding like accordions.”

The house soon plowed against a mountain of debris already buffeting the bridge. A trailer tore into the front porch — pushing it up and away from Father’s window. Using a piece of siding pried loose from the house as a platform, Fr. Edwards jumped to the porch roof.

From that vantage point, he could see that the bridge was awash, but its railing was gleamingly visible. It was like spotting a moonlit breakwater from a stormy sea and knowing that shallower water and a safe harbor lay beyond.

He could also view the tangle of rubble below him being whipped about by the 45-mile-per-hour current while “a house trailer was chopping hunks off the bottom of the porch. If I slipped, I would have been crushed.”

Employing all the strength and agility a man his age has supposedly lost, the 66-year-old priest dropped down on a large timber in the midst of the rubble and leaped for the railing. He landed on the roadway side-in a foot and a half of water-and was then able to walk to safety.

He was alive and uninjured thanks to his own courage, a good deal of luck, and the infinite grace of God.

When he returned to the Center the following morning, the Indian parishioners were amazed that he was alive dough the rectory was gone. Later, both he and they were shocked and saddened to discover that Fr. Collins was dead.

Many of the Indians (for whom Fr. Collins had lived his life) died with him. Statistics from Rapid City’s chancellor, Fr. William J. O’Connell, show that less than 10 percent of the city’s population is Indian; yet they suffered 25 percent of the fatalities. Their homes were the somewhat flimsy structures which once lined the banks of the once lazy creek.

As he walked alongside that creek last month, Fr. O’Connell explained that due to the number of deaths, individual funeral Masses were not conducted in Rapid City. And that all of those killed, regardless of their personal wealth, had the same type of casket.

Using station wagons and pickup trucks, the Sioux transported their lost loved ones back home to the Pine Ridge Reservation — including Fr. Collins. There, 32 priests concelebrated his funeral Mass with Bishop Dimmerling. Hundreds of reservation Indians attended. And nearly 100 Rapid City Sioux traveled the 110 miles southeast to be there also.

Fr. O’Connell tried to find words to express how the Sioux felt about their spiritual father. “One of them scribbled on a note at the Center, something like, ‘He lived his life as his heart loved.’ He really did love his people. He was a beautiful guy.’

“Fr. Collins was what I call a ‘stale-donuts man.’ If they ate stale donuts, so did he. If they drank two-day-old coffee, so did he.”

Fr. O’Connell’s admiration for the lost missionary was echoed by everyone this writer met while in Rapid City-and when leaving. On the flight back to EXTENSION’S Chicago offices, a seatmate introduced herself as Mrs. Joyce Parsons of Rapid City.

As the plane left the city behind, conversation uncovered a surprising coincidence — Mrs. Parsons had once worked at the Mother Butler Center for more than two years. She knew Fr. Collins well.

“He was just full of love,” she remarked. “He’d never let anyone go hungry; he’d just cook up something in that kitchen. He would always take time to stop and visit with you. He was a friend of everybody in Rapid City. His death just broke my heart.”

She turned to the window and looked out over the clouds. And then turned around and declared, “Anybody who didn’t know Fr. Collins, missed something in this life.”

And then she turned back to the view.

The article was originally published int the July/August 1972 issue of Extension magazine. Republished with permission. The issue was dedicated to telling the story of the flood through this article and many other photos. Click on the button below to see the full edition of the magazine.