Flood memories captured in video

As the number of survivors of Yuba City's 1955 flood dwindles, a documentary set to debut this weekend is poised to revive memories of the disaster.

"The 1955 Sutter County Flood" will receive its first showing Saturday in Yuba City during the annual Flood Aware/Flood Prepare Fair. Residents who witnessed the results of the Dec. 24, 1955, levee failure on the Feather River share their stories of escape and loss in the 45-minute oral history, which features witness interviews the county filmed in August to launch a video archive of the flood.

For some of those who shared their stories for the documentary, the experience has pulled memories of fear and disrupted lives back to the surface, decades after the disaster that killed 38 people and forced more than 40,000 others to flee the city.

"Over the years my kids would ask me what had happened and I'd tell them, and nothing bothered me until I was asked, 'What do you remember from when the helicopter was flying away?'" said Diane Bull, who was 5 years old when the surge of floodwater forced her parents and four siblings to punch a hole in the roof of their house — and vividly remembers seeing only rooftops above the water from the rescue basket of the helicopter that took her to safety.

"My dad thought the water was only going to go up to a foot at most," recalled Sharon Laird, then a 16-year-old visiting her grandparents for Christmas. "So my oldest sister ran and picked up our presents and put them on the mantel shelf because she thought they'd be safe there. "Of course, they were all destroyed."

The county announced plans for the video presentation in July as a way to bolster public awareness of the Mid-Valley's flood risks and build support for flood-control projects in the next several years. Shortly before filming began this summer, Smith, who covered the 1986 Yuba County flood as an Appeal-Democrat reporter, called the project a way to add a human voice to existing accounts of the earlier disaster while an older generation still lives.

Saturday's premiere comes less than three weeks after the Oct. 11 death of Norma Bartlett, whose helicopter rescue from her flood-trapped car — after watching her husband drown and holding her young son for seven hours — was captured in a Life magazine photo that became the disaster's symbol for millions of readers.

Within sight of Bartlett's car that night was another inundated vehicle on Township Road west of Yuba City. On its roof were Laird and her grandparents, who clung to a nearby telephone pole for 12 hours as the flood swelled to her shoulders — and, briefly, over her head — before a helicopter crew dropped a life raft near them.

Even with her own family, Laird had not described the ordeal in such detail. But the chance to share the experience with a new generation was too important to pass up, she said — especially with so little time to do so.

"I sincerely believe there weren't many people left that could tell the story," said Laird, who now lives in Pahrump, Nev. "I'm sure there's stuff that even I've forgotten — on purpose, most likely."

"I was not prepared for the emotion," Smith said Thursday. "I was surprised by something emotional in almost every interview."

Sutter County is arranging a cable telecast of the documentary later this year through Comcast Corp., and may make the program available for more public showings or online viewing.