ENID, OK - The aerial photo below is from the Klamath Falls, Oregon Herald & News Newspaper dated Oct. 12, 1973. The picture shows St. Mary's Hospital near Boggy Creek. Many cars were swept down the creek.
1973 Enid, OK Flood Photo
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1973 ENID FLOOD PHOTOS
This was the attached article:
Hospital Evacuated
Rampaging Boggy Creek, (lowerpart of photo) flooded St. Mary's Hospital in Enid, Okla., (right center) and park at left after a 16-inch downpour Wednesday night, forcing evacuation of the hospital. The hospital, six blocks from the town square, lost its medical supplies and electricity when water rose to a foot high on the first floor. Seventy-five or more cars in parking lots around the hospital were swept away into the creek and park and some were found several blocks away. Four fatalities were confirmed and several people are still unaccounted for as search and cleanup operations continued in the stricken city where damages are expected to run into the millions. (UPI Telephoto)
1973 Enid, Oklahoma Flood Details
There seems to be, even today, a great interest in the "great" flood of Enid, Oklahoma. We will try to gather as much information about the flood as we can and post it here. If you have any stories or photos from the flood please send them to us. Below is the information we have gathered at this time.
The huge amount of rainfall that fell in Enid is known as the "Enid Flood". The flood took place October 10 and 11 of 1973. The storm was caused by a locally intense thunderstorm that was centered over Enid. This storm produced the greatest urban rainfall on record in Oklahoma. Rainfall accumulations were 15 to 20 inches within a 100 square mile area. A recorded 2 inches fell in 3 hours.
The cause of the storm was a low pressure center that moved northeastward along a slowly moving cold front. These two systems stalled over north-central Oklahoma, depositing record-breaking rainfall. The 24-hour rainfall total at Enid of 15.68 inches exceeded the previous record which occurred September 3-4, 1940 (at Sapulpa). Unofficial reports have put the amount at 20 inches of rain.
The rain in Enid actually fell in about 12 hours, with 75 percent of it falling in 4 hours. The severe flash flooding that resulted from the rainfall in Enid destroyed or severely damaged 300 homes and 40 businesses. The rainfall also contributed to nine deaths. In Garfield County alone, property damages were estimated at 8 million dollars, with damages to crops and land that climbed to some 13 million.
Governor David Hall called Enid a disaster area and asked President Nixon for federal disaster fund to help rebuild.
Accounts of the flood: (further comments added below)
I was ten years old, living in Enid during the flood. My sister and I were staying alone at our house on South Johnson, while our mom was bowling. My great-grandmother lived directly across the street and kept an eye on us from her front window. I remember there being a very heavy rain that lasted for hours.
The flooding was so bad and so quick that our mom couldn't get home. My great-grandmother must have called us to come to her house because I remember crossing the street to her house and becoming completely drenched as soon as I made it to the front yard. I remember the water completely filling the street and my shoes becoming soaked in an instant.
My grandmother asked me to go to her basement and see if there was any water coming in. I do remember that there were several areas where water was just running into her basement. We used buckets to move the water out of the basement. I'm not exactly sure where we put the water but I think we just threw it out the back door to watch it run back in again.
That's about all I remember about the great Enid flood. We would love to hear your accounts and see any photos that you might have. Please send them to us.
Curtis D. Tucker
I was at the bowling alley during the heavy rainfall. When we finished bowling (up the hill from the corner of W Owen K Garriott and S. Van Buren at the Trail Bowling Alley) that night I went out to the car. I looked and the water was up to the middle of the hub caps on my 67 Thunderbird. I went back inside to think about what to do. A man came in and said his car had just floated away at the corner and he had jumped out of the window. That spot was right at the corner where Walgreens stands now. The small house that is a information center was the highway patrol building and it was totally under water.
The man (a Munsingwear Underwear salesman) asked if anyone could take him to the Ramada Inn. I said I would try so we got in and went West on Rupe and turned at each street to try to get on Owen K Garriott. The man would get out and wade up the street to test the height of the water but at every crossing the water was too high. He told me his wife would never believe this story when he got home to Tulsa. On our final try on South Garland my car finally stalled from so much water. A man in a pickup stopped, picked us up and took us back to South Johnson where a friend lived.
We had found a safe haven from the flood until the water went down. My friend and his wife weren't quite clear on where or how I had come up with a traveling salesman whose car had floated away. We were finally able to go home by dawn and my friend took the man to the Inn. I got my car towed and went home to tell the tale to the kids.
Ann Tucker
Your story rings very familiar. I was also 10 years old in ’73, and like Ann, we were also at the bowling alley that night. My dad bowled on a league for years. I don’t remember much about getting home, just that it was really late. Our house sat on something of a hill, so we didn’t have any damage. However, a friend had to climb out of her car near Johnson Street ( I think) and found it the next day on the banks of Meadowlake Park.
I hadn’t thought about the flood in years. Thanks for memories (I think).
Jodi Shumway
Flood of '73: Rita (Conrady) Buck (aerial photo/article) Richard & Ed Galbraith (train track photo)
(if you remember the 1973 Flood or were caught in it and you would like to help us do further research on this page please feel free to send us stories or photos – Thank You!)More Comments
June 25, 2010 at 5:34 pm
Just seen this website going through Facebook today. It is really interesting to know all of the things that go on in Enid (I live in Enid). What caught my eye was the flood of ’73 story. I didn’t live here then but had family that did and still does today. It was devastating to everyone at the time.
I also remember there being a huge hail storm here back in the seventies and it tearing up a lot of homes and vehicles. My Aunts house had a lot of windows knocked out I remember. If anyone has stories of that I would like to see it, or I could be wrong?
Anyway keep up this site it’s a very good way to see what is going on in town and I do think Enid could be just as good as Oklahoma City or Tulsa! A lot of volunteers and work would help the towns look! It is a nice town and we could have a lot of shows brought here with help of the people! Keep it up !!! Angie:)July 15, 2010 at 4:59 pm
I remember standing at the front door watching the water in the street with my sisters. We lived at the end of W. Oklahoma and everytime a car went by the water came into the house. We did better than others, at least our house was on an incline so we only got 4 inches inside.
August 24, 2010 at 1:34 am
I was born at Saint Mary’s on 9 October 1973. I grew up hearing the stories about the great flood, and my family lost a lot during that flood. My families car floated away, and my dad was one of the people trying to bail water out of the lower level of the hospital. Seeing the pictures, and reading the information, puts it all into perspective.
October 22, 2010 at 5:15 pm
I was a senior in high school during the ’73 flood. I was home with my mother and our dog. Our dog, Rascal, kept barking, so I took him off his chain and put him in a shed on our property.
We noticed that the water was getting high. Boggie Creek ran behind my parents’ house. We heard the storm sirens go off and thought it was because of the high water and saw a neighbor’s car against the bank on the opposite side of the road from our house and the noticed that the whole yard and road was just a sheet of water. Rascal had gotten out of the shed and was sitting on a chair on our front porch. My dad called from Vance (where he worked) and told us if water was coming into the house to turn the breakers off. By this time the water was coming in. It was very strange because it filled up under the house and then seemed to be coming in from every wall (inside walls too) at one time and was knee deep quickly. We tried to put things up high where the water could not get to them but to no avail. I helped my mother and the dog into the trap door to the attic (no ladder, had to scale shelves) and we watched as things were washed out of the house below us. Water level was 63″ inside the house.
We heard the fire department in a boat going down the creek (or flooded yards) near us and managed to get the attic vent opened enough to yell and wave at them. They came and rescued us in their boat and took us to high ground. It was a mess and took a long time to get the house put back into liviable shape. No flood insurance was avialable back then.
And we survived the hail storm also. I do not remember the year, but I’m pretty sure it was a few years before the flood. We had baseball to softball size hail stones. Lots of damage there too.
Raye
January 27, 2011 at 3:53 am
I lived in Drummond a small town about fifteen miles south west of Enid during the flood of ’73. We lived on the edge of Drummond next to an ancient dry lake bed. No one lived out in this large area we called: “The Flats” because of the flooding that occasionally happened there.
I’ll never forget the sound of all that rain falling on the roof – at times it was deafening. Mom and Dad were both somewhat worried too. The next morning the rain stopped. I went outside and the old dry lake had turned into a big real lake! Water was blocking about half of our driveway. I remember poking sticks into the ground at the waters edge every 30 or so minutes and watching the water rise ever so slowly. The water didn’t stop rising until about 6:00 p.m. that evening. By then, the water was up to our back porch. All this water coming right up to our house gave me a very uneasy feeling. I was so glad to see it stop rising.
I remember that after the rain all the drainage systems in Enid were widened and redesigned to handle a flash flood more effectively.Randy
February 25, 2011 at 4:16 pm
i remember the flood.i lived on south independence with my family my dad loyd,my mom genevieve.my brothers,loyd,donald,ronald and tonya. i was 13 then and im 50 now
May 11, 2011 at 6:26 pm
Robert J Rogers’ account of the 1973 flood in Enid, OK:
On that night, Rob’s dad was at the Shamrock Bowling alley and his mother and he were at home with their 2 dogs. They lived at 3102 Dwelle Drive. He was in the 11th grade at Pioneer High School. It had been raining for some time when he looked out the kitchen window and noticed that the driveway was full of water and there were cars floating by. His mother’s car, a Buick LeSabre, was floating between the houses. He realized that this wasn’t good! The water then was up to the front and back door and was coming out of the electrical outlets in the house. The water outside was higher than inside at that time. They heard on the news that people at the Trail Bowling alley were standing on tables to avoid the high water. There was then a loud banging noise, and unbeknownst to them, the back wall of the garage had floated away. The water then came pouring in the kitchen door from the garage. The water in the house within a matter of seconds went from 1 to 5 feet. The icebox went through the patio doors.Rob and his mom put the dogs on a mattress and headed to the bedroom where he kicked out a window and shimmied on a row of bushes and a stockade fence to get to the roof. He then helped his mom out of the window on the fence but she could not get her footing to get on the roof. So she started saying her goodbyes. She told him she loved him and his dad and to let her go. Rob knew he had to get her up there so for the very 1st time he cursed at her (knowing it would make her mad) and told her she was not going anywhere and to get her “*** ***” on that roof!!!!! And it worked! She was mad and she told him when she got up there he was going to get it! But she made it up on that roof!!!!
They stayed for about 45 minutes to an hour on the roof and could hear others hollering all around them. Coming east on Dwelle was a boat with about 6-7 people in it. They stopped and picked up Rob and his mom. They got almost to 30th street when the prop on the boat was knocked out. The owner of the boat asked some of the guys to grab on to anything they could to slow them down. Several tried but the water was so strong it pulled them out of the boat including Rob. This is where he waited until the waters receded. Rob could see the water stretched from the overpass of Highway 412 to Pine Manor apartments. When the water was about a foot, the guys got off the roofs and started looking for their families. Several people died on those streets that night. Rob’s dogs were lucky and survived.
He later found out from his mom that the boat ended up on the roof of the last house on Hillcrest before it opened up into the big creek. Everyone got out on that roof. But then lightening hit the house next to them and several people were burned.
Rob also saw 2 guys in a canoe in the Valleyview addition that were trying to paddle but when the main water current hit that canoe you could see the look of sheer terror in their eyes (there was a streetlight working near them at the time). They paddled so fast and hard and got out of that canoe somewhere near Pine Manor apartments.
What a story! And this is not the last of his nine lives!!! There is more!
October 2, 2011 at 1:31 pm
Me and my wife spent the night across the temporary river from previous story by Curtis Tucker. I worked for Stalcup Imports at 423 west Broadway and was working late that night when the rain started busting the seams of the inside drains in our building My wife and I got everything off of the floors in all of the offices and then decided to go home. We lived straight south on Jefferson street (1200 block south) but there was a temporary river in out way. after driving around in our chevy truck for about 1/2 of an hour and deciding that there was no way home we spent the night in the parking lot of Pizza Inn which was then on the very bank of the river stretching south to the Texaco 2 1/2 blocks south.
January 3, 2012 at 1:43 pm
I also remember the flood. I was around 10 when it happened and living on the street that ran next to Hardees right off Van Buren. (I no longer live in Enid) Of Course the houses on that street are set high up off the street so there was no flooding in the house. I remember I had been out with my mom and right as we got back home it had started raining really hard. She wanted to wait in the car for the rain to slow but it never did and finally we made our way into the house. The next morning I remember lots of kids playing out in the water in the streets. I think about the flood from time to time which is what has brought me to the website today.
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I was 2 yrs old when that flood hit, But I remember standing in the entry way of our house waiting for my dad to come home. We lived at 510 nth harding. The street was flooded and the front yard and driveway was half under water. I remember watching my dad comeing down the street in his company 4 wheel drive truck and the water was up to his windows. I’ve never seen anything like it since.
I did’t live in Enid at the time of the flood. But my grandfather ( Oley McCoy) told me a little about that day and he said that there was a zoo . It was by government springs park. He said most of the animals died that night. Any one know more about this?
Hi Joanna, there was a zoo and we are collecting info and pictures of it here https://www.enidbuzz.com/works/monkey-pit-enid-zoo/
According to what we know the zoo closed in 1972 before the flood occurred.
I was living at 121 N. Burdel Lane during the flood of 73 and in the fourth grade and right off Okwood road was a housing addition that was being built and remembered standing at the window and watching all the stuff float by. The Jewells(Band teacher and 9th Grade English teacher at Waller) lived accross the street and I watched their daughter run out into the street and try and collect stuff that was floating down the street. I wounder what she ever did with the stuff.
Thanks for the story Jayne!!
I know the Jewel’s! I’ll have to ask Tracy if she remembers this!
I was 5 when the flood happened and lived on E. Beech St. I remember during the day going to our neighbors cellar because of a tornado warning and when we came out to go home there were a pile of gas cans sitting in our yard. I don’t know why they were there or where they came from but I can still see them clear as day. Then later that night we were taken to our other neighbors house while my dad went out in tractors from Maupin’s Ford to rescue people. My dad said he rescued people out of trees including a baby. My mom’s parents were at the country club for dinner and their car stalled and had to walk home from Oakwood and Chestnut to their home on Canterbury in the Village. My other grandparents were in the process of moving from a trailer on 30th Street to a house on Cherokee (I think). My grandma had gone back to the trailer to get another load and as she left the trailer broke apart and floated away. They found her refrigerator several miles from the house.
Thanks for the great story Angie!
I was 14 years old and a student at Carrier Junior High when the 1973 Enid flood occurred. Getting on the bus that afternoon, I told the bus driver, Mr. Parkinson, that it looked like it could flood because of how dark the clouds were. Little did I know that I had made a prophecy. That night, I went a block away to babysit two boys whose parents were on a bowling league. They made it home from the Shamrock Bowling Alley early because of the flooding. My Dad had to throw a rope to me on the other side of Columbia street and pull me over because the water was almost up to my neck. After he helped me get home, he left with a couple of other firefighters who were off duty to see what the could do. We had already heard that the Brookside Addition was having severe flooding. Dad and the others finally made it to the overpass on 30th Street. He said he could hear screams and cries from the rooftops of the houses in the addition, but there were also a couple of houses on fire. They manned boats but the currents were too strong, so they had to wait it out until the water started to recede. Dad said he never felt so helpless. Later, we would help a couple of Enid firemen rebuild their homes in Brookside. I remember the smell of those homes after the flood (smelled like mold and wet mud). My job was to try to get as much of the muck off the floors as possible. Well, Brookside was rebuild, but most of the deaths from the flood were from that addition; some from my Church. I remember that some of the homes looked like they had exploded from the inside out (the outer walls were rounded. I also remember sheetrock literally sliding off the walls from the weight of the water. When you look at Boggy Creek today, it’s hard to believe the water was ever that high.
Thanks for the great story Tammy!
My family lived on the edge of Skeleton Creek in North Enid at the time. I was nine years old. Our house was on top of a good sized hill overlooking the creek and I recall watching the water slowly fill the field below us. We heard a radio report that a dam had given way upstream from our house and dad trundled us up in the car to head for higher ground. When we returned home the following day, the water was within a few feet of the house but never made it in.
Man, that was a lot of damn rain that night.
I was a junior at Enid High when the flood hit. We lived at 1424 W Broadway and remember being amazed it could rain so hard for so long. After watching it pour from our front porch for two hours, we kept thinking it had to stop at any time. Two hours later when it final changed from a total down pour to a normal shower, we venture outside.
The intersection at Broadway and Garfield was flooded and kids where swimming in the water where the street gutter was blocked. It still amazes me how dangerous that really was.
I met up with a friend, Mike O’Neil, and we ran across an old man sitting in his car at the intersection of Johnson and Broadway. The water was up the top of the doors and he was sitting on the top of his bench seat with his feet up on the dash. We asked if we could help out and take him up to the hill to the Quick Shop at Randolf and Johnson, across from West Side Rec.
There were already a dozen stranded motorist gathered at the store and we wanted to get him out of his car before the water rose any further. After convincing him to abandon his car, he took what seemed like an hour, but was probably 10 minutes, putting on a pair of rubber boots, only to step out into four feet of water. Seemed really funny at the time.
We also walked to boggy creek at Owen K and Garfield and the water was over the banks and just under the floors of the new dentist offices that were built on stilts.
I also remember the frantic calls to the radio station talking about folks being trapped on the roof of the Wee Too (sp?) restaurant and of course all the reports of people trying to rescue folks on the east side where boggy creek did the most damage. They were saying not to bring any boats with less than a 150hp motor due to the strength of the current.
Anyway, a few random memories from a day I’ll never forget.
Good luck to all those in Moore and the OKC flood areas.
Wow! Glad I wasn’t in Enid back in ’73. I was stationed at Pope AFB, North Carolina and my first daughter was one month old. Now look, after 44 years with the Air Force, I’m settling down in Enid, gotta buy a boat with at least 150hp to be prepared for the next weired storm…
Glad you made it back to Enid!!
I remember daddy opening the garage door and as he did the water went up with the garage door. My dad had built a black iron fence around the porch that day ,and when I was coming home on the bus he was just finishing it. It was dark and we could see the water rising from our station wagon. We had my baby brother Ronnie and dad used that iron fence to push my oldest sister up then grab the baby on the roof ,then Debbie ,Liz ,and me. While up there Debbie started to grab my mom up but she couldn’t do it. Cheri had a hold of the baby and daddy tried to get mom up to but the water was to rough. See we were the first house on Dwelle DR.A brand new house and we were the houses that got hit first in that area. Then by the grace of God Mr. Lambert came in his boat and after going around in his boat around the house he saved us. we went to apts. up above the flood and stayed with two bachelors all night while dad went out to help others. He is gone now but that is just who he was. He saved lives even as a volunteer fireman. And without even knowing it he saved our lives on that day with that black beautiful fence he built that day. love you daddy.
Thanks for the story!!
Wow! I was a good friend of Cheri’s !! I think of her often and would love to hear from her. Could you get in touch with me? I still live in Enid. If you could respond to this I will let you know how to contact me Rhonda Long Gallagher
I watched the water come up my yard at 121 N Burdel Lane. The building materials from the housing addition west of us came down Randolf and starting coming down Burdel Lane. Timber broke the patio door at the house on west side of Burdel Lane and flooded the house. I watched the water come up half way in my yard on East side of Burdel Lane. THe big ditch was over it banks and could not get east on Randolf. The fire department called for boat and a friend who worked at the bank with me lived east f the ditch. He took his boat to help with the recovery. I had only lived in Enid two years and was ready to go back to OKC
Thanks for the story Joe!!
My mom and dad Alph and Maxine Shorter (and family) lived in Enid during the flood. My mom heard the call for boats on te radio and wanted my dad to go out, but he thought they would want “small boats”. Then they heard them call for boats with more than 100 hp engines, so he took his 18′ inboard/outboard 130 hp boat out to close to St. Marys’. He picked up Dr. Simon and his daughter trying to wade from his clinic to St. Marys’ and later picked up 4-5 other people. The current grabbed the boat and the engine could not hold; it threw them against a tree and everyone fell out. May have been the boat incident described in an earlier post. I have you beat though having been in the middle of TS Claudette in Friendswood Tx when we got 43″ of rain in 20 hours, in July of 1979. It is still a US (maybe world) record.
the sad thing is Enid has not improved much since that flood
I was 14 yrs old and living on Brooks Dr in Brookside (our back yard faced Boggy Creek) and our house was 2nd on the end by Hillcrest. I was babysitting 2 small children (The Hakens) at their house wh