West of St. George, in the beautiful little city of Santa Clara, stands a home built in 1862 by Mormon craftsmen for Jacob Hamblin. The home is constructed of Ponderosa timbers from Pine Valley and local red sandstone. The building was home for Jacob Hamblin and his family and It was the destruction of the fort by a flash flood that finally prompted the Hamblins to build a more secure home, back away from the stream. The flood hit without warning following torrential rains early in 1862. Families living in the area lost their homes, orchards, school, and most of their books and personal effects. They escaped only with some of their clothing, bedding and utensils.
As History sometimes repeats it's self, we in Santa Clara today have seen what that great Santa Clara River can do! We have been blessed because even though1 family lost all there belongings (we think they were renting,) 1 lost their home (not even finished being built, but still have all their possesions) and one has a house but lost a garage, an apartment above the garage, a few 4 wheelers, an old station wagon and a boat and trailer, various other's lost farm equipment, but most lost huge sections of their land; it could have been worse! We could have had tons of homes, and many lives lost if land had been developed as it is everywhere else in this county.
As Matt lives this nightmare of helping to shore up land and put the river back where it belongs I have a few thoughts on what has happened. I am extremely thankful that no lives were lost in Santa Clara and that I have a husband who is working till all hours of the night to help those who need help the most! In the last few weeks of this experience Matt has lobbied for funding from the State Legislature spent 16 hours driving back and forth between Salt Lake and Santa Clara so that he can attend all his meetings that require his attention and also deal with the final weeks of his Mom's life. (that will be another entry.)
He has had long hours and not enough sleep and yet, he has smoozed with the high and mighty of Utah(even down to driving in a motorized caravan from the airport to Santa Clara,) and won them over to the extent that he has been in many newspaper articles in the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News on what is trying to be done. Hopefully this will bring our poor city the funding that it desperately needs!
I am saddened that Santa Clara will never look the same as it did when we first moved here. It has now truly turned into a desert instead of the flower in the desert that it was before. But to help remember all of the beauty that was, a few citizens and businesses are putting together a book about the history of the area and all the pictures they can get their hands on of before and after the flood. This venture is going to help raise money for the flood victims!
so we will always have history of it all.
Sometimes as we study others lives and think about what has happened in the past we learn things that can help us now. First of all: Jacob Hamblin learned from his 100 year flood; he decided to build his next house on a higher plain. It's sort of like the Wise Man building his house upon the rock and the Foolish Man building his house upon the sand. W e have to ask ourselves will the powers that be keep houses from being built in the flood plain this time too and build more houses in the heights? As my Grandpa Field use to say, "Time will only tell!"
Below are a few pictures of the flood taken from various sources,Matt has not given me his picture disk but I will add a few more when they come.
For all of you that have been to the Jacob Hamblin house this is not what you would normally see, usually you would see farm land and an old barn.But what is left is no road and no barn and what was next door, a house!
A scene from Gubler's house. You can see that one of the Anderson's houses has fallen into the river. They had already lost their 2 car garage with an apartment above, 2 ATVs, an old station wagon and a boat and trailer. Very sad!
ABC News at the Jacob Hamblin House. Except for the "Do Not Cross" line, you wouldn't know that anything was wrong just 200 feet away!
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