  With the primary emergency—rescuing the injured and freeing the trapped—contained, there still remained the perplexing problem of trying to figure out, just how many were still buried under the 80-million-ton rock slide. Early guesses put the figure in the hundreds. The infeasibility of moving 43 million cubic yards of collapsed mountain in quest of this gruesome total was almost immediately apparent. Aerial photos taken that next morning showed that the slide hadn’t covered the improved portion of Rock Creek Campground—the section with five formally-laid-out campsites, each with parking spot, fireplace, picnic tables, etc. But this didn’t help much toward an estimate of the total buried, because of the informal fashion in which both trailer and tent campers would set up for the night anywhere they could find a level spot. Water from normal flow of the Madison beginning to flood the canyon, and Rock Creek Campground, which was located under the water at the right. Note the streaks showing the flow patterns of the slide.(Montana Highway Commission) Fred Brauer of the Forest Service Fire Control Division in Region 1, HQ in Missoula spent quite a bit of time talking to survivors and others who might help to establish a probable total. Rev. Ost, who’d been camped in Rock Creek Campground, said that he had counted 21 trailers between the mouth of the Madison Canyon and the spot he camped. The undertaker in Ennis, Charles Raper, put his estimate at 100 to 160. Brauer found that Marshal George Hibert of the town of Ennis had been on a fishing trip in the vicinity of the slide area on Monday, August 17, and for some inexplicable reason decided to cut the trip short, leaving the area at 9:30 o’clock that night, about two hours before the quake. He guessed, from his observations, that there could be 100 people under the slide. Guy Hanson, a West Yellowstone 5th and 6th grade school teacher who was working that summer as a Fire Prevention Guard for the Forest Service, had periodically checked the Madison Valley campgrounds. In one survey, shortly before the quake, he’d found five tents, eight trailers, and 42 people in the Rock Creek Campground. In the adjacent, unimproved area, he’d counted another 25 people. At noon the Monday of the quake, he’d helped police the improved area and found six trailers parked there at midday. He didn’t check the unimproved area. From his familiarity with the campground, Hanson felt that 40 campers were probably trapped under the slide. Brauer chilled as Hanson told him that the occupancy could be higher if there were groups, such as Boy Scouts, camped there. He described how often he’d found scout encampments at Rock Creek, and how one scoutmaster had told him that this was a favorite camping objective for many Utah scout troops. While Brauer was trying for an answer as to how many, others were working on the question of just who was buried under the slide. Mrs. T. Mark Stowe of Sandy, Utah, was considered a probable from the first. Her husband was washed out from under the lower end of the slide, and it was logical to deduce that she’d been caught under the rock mass. Whose gear? This collection of clothes and creel found below the slide, may be a clue to one of the victims still buried under huge pile of rock and debris.(Lewis—Montana Standard) Volunteers from Ennis, Butte, Virginia City and elsewhere walked over the rugged slide for days searching for any kind of clue which might help. They turned up everything from fishing creels, camp equipment, and souvenir pillows to kids’ shoes. One slide-walker found an exposed roll of film which was immediately heralded as a hot lead. But when developed, the film turned out to have been ruined by the water. Their findings were kept in a county warehouse in Ennis. Much of it was claimed by those who’d escaped. The debris, so painstakingly gathered, helped little in the search for identity. The quest evolved into the painful job of waiting, keeping lists, sifting names. From the moment the quake occurred and the fact that there were casualties became known, phone calls, telegrams, and letters began surging in from all over the U. S. wanting to know about friends and relatives who might be in the area or among the victims. Volunteer slide workers searched the huge 80-million-ton pile of rock for victims, and clues to identity of the buried.(Lewis—Montana Standard) “The Disaster Service of the American Red Cross did a tremendous job through their teletype and telephone by taking over these inquiries and sending back information through the Home Service chapters,” Don Skerritt, Sheriff of Gallatin County, said. One of the leads was a spaniel discovered wandering in the slide area the day after the quake. The animal wore a Salt Lake dog license tag. This seemed like a certain clue to the identity of some of the victims. In response to Skerritt’s teletype inquiry, Salt Lake police found that the dog supposed to be wearing the tag had been killed months before. Someone had hung the collar in a gas station. Subsequently this collar was put on another dog. Further probing developed that the dog in the quake area belonged to the Ray Painters of Ogden, Utah. Mrs. Painter, one of the casualties, died in the Bozeman hospital a couple of days after the quake. In Ennis County Warehouse, Red Cross Area Disaster Director Ralph Carlson, who flew to the quake scene from San Francisco, looks puzzled as he surveys part of the truckload of material recovered by slidewalkers searching for clues to identity of those buried under slide.(Christopherson) Skerritt, who’s like a quieter, shorter version of Kefauver, worked all that week and for months afterwards on the identity problem. During the first weeks, Red Cross volunteers and personnel worked around the clock to answer the flood of inquiries. There were some 3,000 of them. They felt fortunate that no scout troops turned up missing. These queries, they painstakingly sifted, sorted, and winnowed down. With tireless persistence, they kept at it, writing to the source of each of the thousands of inquiries to find out if the missing had turned up. New inquiries kept coming in—and still do, asking about people that just plain haven’t been heard from, and their relatives, or friends have thought of the slide as a possible explanation. Through tangible tie-ins, like postcards, letters, the use of credit cards in the area just before the quake, phone calls from the area, they finally got down to a list of those highly probable as slide victims whose bodies will never be uncovered. Gruesome reminder? Days after the quake, these children’s shoes and clothing still lay in the dried-up streambed below the massive slide.(Christopherson) Take the case of Roger Provost, an official at the California State Prison at Soledad, California. He had been in touch with his office up to the date of the quake. He was a methodical type. Upon leaving California, he left a planned vacation itinerary stating that the family was to proceed from Yellowstone down the Madison River (August 18, 19, 20 and 21) and to Bozeman, etc. Several cards to friends and relatives postmarked Aug. 16 at West Yellowstone, Montana, stated that the family was at a trailer campsite “on the Madison River, about 30 miles from Yellowstone.” Another family, Robert J. Williams and wife, Coy, children Michael, 7; Steven, 11; and Christy, 3, of Idaho Falls, had told relatives they planned on fishing the Madison River. They registered as visitors at the Museum in Virginia City on August 17, 1959, and weren’t heard of again. Stranded boat. Dr. Merle Edgerton and his wife, Edna, in their car and trailer, were travelling with Harmon Woods and his wife, Edna, who also brought their car and trailer. Dr. Edgerton kept in daily contact with his hospital in Coalinga, California, up to the time of the slide. He was last heard from on August 15, giving the families’ location as “on the Madison River, outside Ennis, 35 miles from Yellowstone.” The complete list of those who on such evidence are considered buried under the monumental Madison Canyon slide totalled 19. They are: Sidney D. Ballard, wife, and son of Nelson, B. C. Bernie L. Boynton and wife, Inez, of Billings, Montana. Dr. Merle Edgerton and wife, Edna, of Coalinga, California. Roger Provost, and wife, Elizabeth, and sons, Richard 16, and David, 1½, of Soledad, California. Mrs. Thomas Mark Stowe of Sandy, Utah. Robert J. Williams, and wife, Coy, and children, Steven, 11; Michael, 7, and Christy, 3 of Idaho Falls, Idaho. Harmon Woods and wife, Edna, of Coalinga, Calif. The other quake casualties include Mr. Purley Bennett and children, Tommy, Carole and Susan of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, who, along with Thomas Stowe of Sandy, Utah, were found below the slide. Mr. and Mrs. E. H. Stryker of San Mateo, California, were killed by the boulders at the Cliff Lake Campground. Mrs. Myrtle Painter of Ogden, Utah, and Mrs. Margaret Holmes of Billings, Montana, died of quake injuries in the Bozeman Hospital. The final Montana-Yellowstone Earthquake death toll stands at 28. |
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