Dan Gall and Kristi Bontrager 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

Dan Gall and Kristi Bontrager 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	Dan Gall and Kristi Bontrager interview about the Midwest floods of June 2008, Iowa City, Iowa, September 30, 2008
Creator	Bontrager, Kristi Gall, Dan
Date Original	2008-09-30
Summary	Dan (age 39) and Kristi (age 38) discuss evacuating Dan's residence before the floods. They discuss the sense of comradery Dan witnessed as he helped a community in their sandbagging efforts.
Contents	Hearing about flood of 1993 as Dan was looking for a home. Rented in Mosquito Flats neighborhood. Obviously a flood plain (00:01:21) -- Dan remembers the timeline. Feels like a lucky one from the flood (00:03:28) -- Dan describes events before the flood. Steam carpet cleaned scheduled for Friday morning of flood. Came very close to things being much worse (00:04:00) -- Lead-up to flood, getting release from University to go fill sandbags. Going to old neighborhood to help build retaining wall. Mowing the lawn after spending hours sandbagging - something so trivial (00:06:55) -- Evacuation orders. Getting stuff out of rental house. Wall didn't do much when flood came. Dan describes where the wall was built and where it broke. A mile long wall. Taller than six feet (00:09:33) -- the sandbag filling was strangely festive. Sense of shared purpose - saving their own house or there because people needed help - Dan had already moved but wanted to help (00:12:25) -- Dan's wife also worked sandbagging and trading off childcare. Some people building their own wall (00:14:03) -- Having strangers in the neighborhood - there to help but felt also invasive. Mostly a "real communal thing" (00:15:29) -- Dan's son worries about water damage and flood - five years old. Hadn't had a chance to say goodbye to the house. Afraid that house had literally been "washed away" (00:16:26) -- Rental house had two feet of water in it and is now completely gutted (00:20:21) -- Dan feels bad for the family who own the house - house is their family home. Tried to protect property as much as possible (00:21:12) -- How flood affected Meredith. Neighborhood they moved to was virtually unaffected. Big worry about creeks backing up in new neighborhood (00:23:59) -- Impression of city government and university response to flood. Reasonably good response. At first university tried to keep track of hours but then endorsed any kind of flood relief (00:27:31) -- Number of people volunteering, filling sandbags. "That impressed me" (00:30:00) -- Pulling books out of the library to save. Chaos of book trucks and hand-over-hand passing. Running over guy's toes next to him. A young teenager at bottom of ramp who worked well with Dan. No idea who this woman is (00:31:54) -- Dark humor and teasing - Dan running people over. "It's a lot more pleasant if people laugh" (00:36:12) -- Columbus Junction started flood damage control measures. Realized town was doomed and went to another town to help (00:37:57) -- Plans to stay in Iowa to be close to grandma and grandpa. Always something to worry about (00:39:00)
Topical Subject (LCTGM)	Floods Evacuations Disaster relief
Personal Name Subject	Bontrager, Kristi Gall, Dan
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	00:39:50
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	DDA000500.mp3

Find results with:

Searching collections:

Home Dan Gall and Kristi Bontrager interview about the Midwest floods of June 2008, Iowa City, Iowa,...

Dan Gall and Kristi Bontrager interview about the Midwest floods of June 2008, Iowa City, Iowa, September 30, 2008

File Format:

Description

Tags

Comments