FLOOD07982

• County: Larimer
• Stream Name: Big Thompson
• Basin: South Platte
• Title: The Big Thompson Flood
• Date: 7/31/1976
• Prepared For: Larimer County
• Prepared By: C.F. Boone Publisher
• Floodplain - Doc Type: Flood Documentation Report

food orders, and various kinds of
furniture.
Staffed each day by a professional
case worker and an Officer, The
Salvation Army was represented until
the center was closed.
The canteen services provided more
than 5,000 cups of coffee, 25 dozen
doughnuts, 5,500 cold drinks, 1,000
complete hot meals, and 10,300
sandwiches to an estimated 14,300
people.
At the FDAA Center, more than
400 persons were helped by the case
work team; food, clothing, medical
supplies, gas, airline tickets for
stranded tourists and even a front-end
alignment for a damaged car was
disbursed by the case work team.
Service Extension workers did a
tremendous volunteer job. In Love-
land, Mrs. Georgia Tomson, a director
of the "House of Neighborly Service"
and a Servce Extension volunteer,
worked around the clock mobilizing
local volunteers who sorted clothes
and furniture, gave out food orders,
and gave leadership throughout the
city during the disaster.
In Estes Park, Welfare Chairman
Mrs. Susan Mardock works for the
Police Department. Even though
phones were down during the
emergency and she could not be
reached by radio, she knew what to

do. She was on duty 24 hours,
directing distribution of food to more
than 150 people, medical supplies for
20, clothing for 10, gasoline for 25
families, bus transportation for 6
people and she arranged with dozens
of local residents to take in survivors.
She continues to serve on behalf of
. The Salvation Army. A recent call
revealed that the town of Glen Haven
was badly damaged and needed
immediate help with supplies to clean
and clear away the wreckage. Mops,
brooms, chainsaws, buckets were
desperately needed. The cost was
nearly $1,000 for the items needed, to
be available for loan through the
Volunteer Fire Department to local
residents. Could anyone help with this
need? Mrs. Mardock thought that her
Salvation Army would. She was right!
So for many weeks to come this
practical need is being met through
the efforts of our Service Extension
volunteers.
In the final few days before the
Sheriff decided that the canteen could
be returned to Denver, the task of the
canteen workers became more
sensitive.
The flood not only left the debris of
broken houses and businesses but
also the broken and drowned bodies
of its victims. To the recovery teams,
helicopter pilots, Sheriff's officers,

State Patrolmen, and volunteers came
the grisly task of recovering the
victims.
Sometimes recovered from
submerged cars, sometimes pried
from under boulders or dug out of the
mud, the bodies were tenderly carried
to the morgue by strong, silent, weary
volunteers. A real ministry to these
hard working and sometimes shaken
men was given by Salvation Army Offi-
cers, serving a simple cup of coffee, a
sandwich. Their conversation was
often not on things of the earth but on
the deep, the spiritual, the eternal.
One young man on the last day
came to the canteen for coffee and a
snack. He seemed shaken. "How is it
going?" he was asked. "We just pulled
out a five year old boy," he said. "I
was thinking about my nephew. . .he's
about that same age." A touch on the
shoulder, the quiet sharing of faith in a
God who cares and understands. Not
much perhaps, just a cup of coffee and
a human being who shares in the
shock, the grief. Then back to the
distasteful but necessary job of
recovering more bodies.
No, there are no tales of heroism in
the Salvation Army story of the Big
Thompson Flood. Just the usual story
of The Salvation Army disaster service
_ "With Heart to God and Hand to
Man" - we served.

32