The attached audio above is from SDPB's daily public-affairs show, In the Moment, with Lori Walsh.
This week marks the 50th year since the Black Hills Flood took more than 230 lives.
While most of the lives lost were in Rapid City, the flood also impacted nearby Black Hills towns, including Keystone. John Culberson was working as a park ranger at Jewel Cave National Monument that summer. Along with state Highway Patrolman Bill Morgan, Culberson drove to Keystone to help evacuate a campground.
“You could not face back into the rain because it was so intense you couldn’t breathe,” Culberson said.
The two tried to turn back as road conditions deteriorated.
“Water was coming down the four lane,” he said. “We jumped in the car and headed back towards Mount Rushmore, and immediately the patrol car floated out and we could not make any progress.”
While the two were abandoning the car, Culberson was taken by the rushing water.
“Fortunately, I grabbed the whip antenna on the patrol car and threw myself across on the trunk of the car, and he and I got together up on the curb and started looking for high ground,” Culberson said.
Culberson and Morgan walked to a nearby motel along Grizzly Bear Creek, where Culberson said the water was rushing so fast that “the noise was incredible, like several locomotives surrounding you.” There, they encountered young vacationers yelling for help from the other side.
“What amazed us is that when the water went down, as quickly as it went up, we went across and got those kids off those buildings and I drove them up to Mount Rushmore,” Culberson said.
Thirteen people in Keystone lost their lives that week.
The Journey Museum & Learning Center in Rapid City will screen a new SDPB documentary, “Surviving the ’72 Flood,” at 6:30 p.m. Mountain time on June 8. The film will air on SDPB-1 the next evening, June 9, at 9 Central/8 Mountain.
An SDPB episodic podcast of the same name is available now on various podcast platforms.
