Ron Clark and Thomas J. Bender interview about the Midwest floods of June 2008, Iowa City, Iowa, September 30, 2008

View Description

small (250x250 max)

medium (500x500 max)

large ( > 500x500)

Full Resolution

Ron Clark and Thomas J. Bender interview about the Midwest floods of June 2008, Iowa City, Iowa, September 30, 2008

File Format:
Link to Web File

you wish to report:

Your comment:

Your Name:

Submit

Cancel

...

Rating
Title	Ron Clark and Thomas J. Bender interview about the Midwest floods of June 2008, Iowa City, Iowa, September 30, 2008
Creator	Clark, Ron Bender, Thomas J.
Date Original	2008-09-30
Summary	Thomas (age 54) and Ron (age 58) are involved in the Riverside Theater, and they talk about how the summer Shakespeare Festival was affected and how the community came together.
Contents	Tom's background with the Riverside Theater - small setting, fell in love when he come to see Ron's shows (00:01:45) -- Tom called Ron - Tom's office right on the river, was concerned about Riverside's costume shop. Sandbagging, sealing. Ron thought he was overreacting (00:02:51) -- Summer Shakespeare Festival about to start - Tom had been in insurance and risk management (00:04:37) -- November through May - lots of rain. Ron in denial about the flood. Couldn't rely on the news reports. "CFS" - Cubic Feet per Second became a commonly known acronym. Reservoir was supposed to protect them - now it was the "enemy." (00:05:30) -- Ron's wife, artistic director. They started researching it, worrying about scene shop. It had flooded in 1993 - supposed to be a "100 year flood" (00:09:00) -- Twelve people, three pickup trucks - evacuated the shop. Couldn't get everything. Run on temporary storage in the area. People being evacuated from multiple places in a row. Barely time to look at the big picture (00:10:45) -- Tom - sandbagging in Coralville (00:13:35) -- The morning the levee broke - volunteers came out of the woodwork. Mini-sandbag factory, 80-90 people. Needed 1,700 sandbags. Three foot wall around building (00:15:36) -- Tom with his son Robby - knew they had to get a generator started. Police stopped him, Tom begged to get past. Parked on the median. Exhausted, pitch black. Had to swim to the building - son went first. Swam alone for fifteen minutes. Fearing for his son's life (00:18:06) -- Going to the scene/costume shop. Very dangerous - building had been lifted off the foundation. Building in danger of collapse. Getting ill from the air down there. "Worse than Hell" (00:23:23) -- Ron talks about the Shakespeare Festival - performed "A Comedy of Errors." Received lots of contributions to recover losses (00:32:48) -- Outdoor theater - built sandbag wall extra eight feet high to get it "above the flood level." Company meeting in the midst of the flood. Didn't want to cancel the festival. Last rehearsal in City Park - water coming up. Knew no one else would see that performance. Moved to City High (00:34:06) -- Recovery, Iowa City government (00:41:00)
Topical Subject (LCTGM)	Floods Evacuations Disaster relief
Personal Name Subject	Clark, Ron Bender, Thomas J.
Geographic Subject	United States -- Iowa -- Iowa City United States -- Iowa -- Iowa River
Chronological Subject	2000-2010
Type (DCMIType)	Sound
Type (AAT)	Oral histories (Document genres)
Type (IMT)	mpeg
Language	English
Digital Collection	Iowa City Flood
Contributing Institution	StoryCorps (Project) University of Iowa. Libraries. Digital Research & Publishing
Subcollection	Flood Oral Histories
Rights Management	Educational use only, no other permissions given. U.S. and international copyright laws may protect this item. Commercial use or distribution of this digital object is not permitted without written permission of the copyright holder.
Duration	00:43:26
Contact Information	Contact Digital Research & Publishing at the University of Iowa Libraries: http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/drp/contact.html
Digitization Specifications	MP3 mpeg layer 2 audio @ 64kbps derived from archival WAVE files
Date Digital	2008-09-30
File Name	DDA000495.mp3

Find results with:

Searching collections:

Home Ron Clark and Thomas J. Bender interview about the Midwest floods of June 2008, Iowa City, Iowa,...

Ron Clark and Thomas J. Bender interview about the Midwest floods of June 2008, Iowa City, Iowa, September 30, 2008

File Format:

Description

Tags

Comments