In spring 1965, I owned a construction company building ponds and did a lot of government work. I also did building site work for the Schwab Co. in Winona.
About 10 a.m. one morning the phone rang. It was Keith Schwab, wanting to know if I had a dozer ready to go. If I could be in Winona with it as water was coming up around Fibrite Co.
We started pushing up a dike around Fiberite Co. Keith Schwab stopped by and asked if we could get another dozer to town. So we hauled another dozer in, and at 5 p.m., the city of Winona had a special meeting. I and other contractors attended the meeting because the city knew it was going to be bad. So a lot of machinery and trucks were hauled in. And everyone went to work 24 hours a day, which a lot of us weren’t prepared for because we needed extra help.
I worked three days with my help. We had to get some rest. I called home and told my wife she had to find some help to relieve us. When I saw help coming, it was a great relief.
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It was cold and rainy, and the second day the Salvation Army came in and served sandwiches and coffee. About four days later the Red Cross came in and served with the Salvation Army.
There were trucks, scrapers, dozers in every direction. We worked on the East End mostly. We went through people’s yards, pushing up anything in the way to make a dike. Clothes lines, shrubs, small trees, no one cared — just save the city.
Trucks were hauling to us at the same time with fill. There were many volunteers helping--filling sand bags, laying plastic, anything to keep up to secure the dikes to make them hold.
On the West End of Winona where men were working, the water moved the dike several feet. The water just slid it. The scrapers dug up railroad traks on the West End. They got dirt wherever they could for the trucks to keep hauling. There were trucks of every shape, size and form. One-ton trucks with hoists, up to tandem trucks. I know sometimes there were up to 200 trucks hauling.
I don’t remember what morning it was, but the railroad dike broke on Delta. It relieved a lot of pressure. They said the 5A dike was high enough. But early Easter Sunday morning, they came to me with a lowboy trailer and said they were taking me to 5A dike. The water was at least 20 feet high on one side and nothing on the other. The wind was blowing and the water was trickling across the dike in different places. They sent me 125 trucks with filled with dirt. I was worried, as I was in the middle of that dike. If it would have broken, any of us out there would not have gotten out of there. It would have gone through the city of Winona.
If it wouldn’t have been for all the people that joined together filling sand bags, patrolling the dikes, working night and day for about four weeks, they wouldn’t have saved the city and Winona can be proud of that.
I personally am proud that I and my help could be there. It just shows when disaster strikes, how people will work together.
