Black Hills floods revisited…

Hydrologist Dan Driscoll of Rapid City shares research
about historical floods in the Black Hills region 

There was standing room only Tuesday night (2/5/13) as more than 100 people sandwiched themselves inside the Senior Citizen's Center in Spearfish to hear Dan Driscoll talk about flooding.

It's a topic all too familiar to many residents of the northern Black Hills, and memories of the devastating Rapid City flood of 1972 came back with little prompting as Driscoll gave the group an hour-long overview of historic floods in the Black Hills region.

An hydrologist with the U. S. Geological Survey in Rapid City, Driscoll has been very involved with studies relating to flood-frequency analysis.  Well rooted in science, he provided our friends at the Spearfish Area Historical Society with a thumbnail sketch of how scientists go about measuring size and frequency of flooding -- underscoring the importance of historical data, while conceding that there's still a lot of uncertainty about flow estimates in flooding rivers.

Driscoll's presentation -- including links to historic flood photographs and information -- is reported on the web site of the Spearfish Area Historical Society.  Read more...

Nemo Road area in the flood of '72

by Norma Kraemer

Luverne "Vern" Kraemer and his first wife Bertha survived the Flood of ’72 at their home at the Box K Ranch three miles south of Nemo, SD. Luverne took the pictures in black and white the morning after the flood on June 10, 1972. The water was starting to recede, but the damage was obvious. He traveled as far north as Este Creek and as far south as the Pennington/Meade County line to take these pictures. Washed out bridges blocked travel beyond these locations. For a month after the flood, he had to travel to HWY 385 using Merritt-Estes Road and then to Johnson Siding to get to his job at the Rapid City airport because Nemo Road was impassable to Rapid City. 

Este Creek flooding at Nemo Road - 10 June 1972

He reports that at the height of the storm on June 9, the lightening was so continuous that it was almost like daylight outside. It rained for six hours for a total of 15”. Box Elder Creek came out of its banks and spread across the valley floor reaching within 75 yards of his home. The home is approximately 180 yards from the creek. Steamboat Rock, a prominent landmark bordering the east of his ranch, and all the surrounding hills were covered with waterfalls. Rocks the size of Volkswagen Beetles were floating down Box Elder Creek. One resident of the Ox Yoke Ranch died by being swept down Box Elder Creek, being found later near Black Hawk, SD.

 

It took the Lawrence County Road Department several days to remove the rocks covering Nemo Road that came out of the canyon north of the ranch home. Vern had to hire a front-end loader to remove the large rocks that extended into the field. Since he has an airport runway down the valley, for years he would give me a bucket when we walked down the runway to pick up rocks and remove them from the possible path of the aircraft to prevent propeller damage.  This was more than ten years after the flood.   

For more photographs and information about the impact of the 1972 flood in Lawrence County, visit our Historical Marker Gallery.