Surviving the Vanport Flood, 1948

Marj and Carol lived at Vanport Oregon in 1948 at the time the Columbia River flooded the area. She related the following about the flood:


"VANPORT: MAY 31, 1948.. It was Sunday morning, and I was getting together my sterling silver and important papers in a basket because a paper left under our door that morning advised that if the dike holding back extra high waters from the Columbia River should break, we would be notified and would have several hours to leave the area. Carol, my husband, was working in downtown Portland at United States Rubber Co. helping pump flood water out of the basement. When he heard by radio that the dike was breaking at Vanport he ran out, got on the last bus at that time to Vanport and found it already flooded. He helped others screw water hoses together and throw them out to stranded people on the roofs of the 2-story apartment buildings that were floating by so they could pull them close enough for the people to get off.

At the same time, his brother Joseph in Vancouver, WA just across the bridge had heard the radio bulletin and went immediately to Vanport. Finding he was too late to help me, since the highway had already gone out, he stood at the closest point to the highway break and took a series of three pictures recording further advance of the water. Those pictures happened to be the only ones taken on the spot and appeared in Life magazine.

In the meantime, my electricity had gone off and I suddenly realized there was a wall of water coming our way from the north. It was filled with buildings, trees and all sorts of debris. I heard the honking of a little old vehicle outside my door and ran out to find an older couple who had been working in the shipyards. They had filled their car with their belongings that morning. I jumped on the running board, the basket over my arm, and we managed to get out. Later, I found that my feet had been dyed black from the flood waters. I walked many blocks to my mother-in-laws house where eventually my husband came also. A sister-in-law lived in Vanport, also, but was visiting her mother at the time. She didn't believe me when I phoned to tell her that her home was gone. Nothing from that apartment building was ever found. There were several deaths--mostly older people who had stayed in their buildings.

Two months later we went back with my brother Bud, who had an army duck and with the accompaniment of guards we took out bedding and clothing and took them to my mother's back yard where she washed and gagged at the horrible odor of them, and hung them on the clothesline where they promptly fell apart from the chemicals in the water. I have only a plate or two that survived, but part of the gold trim on them is gone."