The final Montana-Yellowstone Earthquake death toll stands at 28.
CD AND NATURAL DISASTERS
Natural disasters, like the Montana-Yellowstone Earthquake, are perhaps the best test of our Civil Defense readiness. Until the quake, CD Director Hugh Potter wasn’t at all sure that he had an outfit at all. Operating on a short budget of $21,000 a year, with all of the third biggest, sprawled-out state to organize, he’d set up, at least on paper, state-wide and county CD groups. He’d compiled an exhaustive inventory of state facilities, resources, etc., complete to such minutiae as the number of aspirins in the state (1,657,000 5-gr. tablets), and the amount of meat Montana’s abundant wildlife represented (58,517,725 lbs., including 1,000 bison, 415 grizzly bears).
The alerts he’d organized weren’t notable successes, and he’d caught some hell from the higher-ups for not being current on the state-wide alerts which are supposed to be held at least once a year.
“Our people just aren’t too enthusiastic about practice alerts,” Potter says. “Frankly, they feel it’s a waste of time. They’re busy. They don’t want to play war. A guy will say, ‘I want to go fishing, or put up a hay crop, or something.’
“But let a real emergency happen and they’re right there.
Real shook—the interior at the colorful Virginia City Courthouse the morning after the quake.(Lewis—Montana Standard)
“During that first day Ed Cottingham and I were busy pulling triggers. I realized then that the most important thing I’d done during my seven years as CD director was getting around and getting to know who to phone—the people you can count on to get something done in an emergency. You can get the heck of a lot done if you know the right guy to call.