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Rapid City One
Thu Aug 21, 2003
Listen in RealAudio 
Summer afternoons on the Great Plains often bring mountainous thunderstorms, which can rapidly
dump torrents of rain into the creeks and rivers. Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton for The Weather
Notebook. Today Joshua Welsh tells the story of such a storm that hit Rapid City, South Dakota
more than 30 years ago.
Normally, Rapid Creek trickles benignly down the east slope of the Black Hills, through Rapid
City, and off across the prairie. But on the afternoon of June 9th, 1972, a summer deluge
parked over the area, pouring up to 15 inches of water in places. The terrain above the city
funneled much of that water into Rapid Creek, which quickly overflowed. Teresa Murphy is a
meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Rapid City.
"A stationary front was located in the vicinity of the Black Hills, and the surface flow was
from the southeast. It was pushing the moist air into the Black Hills, and that kept the
system anchored, if you will, up against the Black Hills."
In other words, the clouds were trapped in a small area, with no place else to dump their
load. Murphy says 50,000 cubic feet of water--the equivalent of ten thousand bathtubs--passed
through the middle of town each second during the height of the flood. She says this was a
500-year event.
By morning, the flood waters had broken a small municipal dam and destroyed homes and
businesses through the middle of town. 238 people died in the flood--some of their bodies
washed up miles downstream. After this disaster, the city purchased all the land in the flood
plain in hopes to mitigate the future floods, in case they won't wait another 500
years.
Joshua Welsh shares a survivor's story tomorrow. The Weather Notebook is supported by The
National Science Foundation, and Subaru.
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