0-10 Min: Day of the Flood (October); missed the August one; it was coming down hard on Saturday, but didn't think much of it; river was getting a little high; their store was over the river (building next down was directly under it); got word of the river getting high and left to get to the store; Driving around; they couldn't get that close to the store because of the water; Store; their retail area was downstairs, had storage upstairs; Travel; it was hard to get around town after that; water level and collapsed bridges; Evacuation; saw a GI truck rescuing people; made sure they salvaged their books;
10-20 Min: Clean; up; least glamorous part of flood; mud and dirt that it left; they didn't lose much as everything was upstairs; Night of the Flood; "End of the World" (Ad A): Height of the water; probably 5; 6 feet on Main at lowest point there; White was almost completely flooded; Loss of electricity;
20-30 Min: Forms of heat; fireplace used, but weather wasn't too cold; Fear of flood; there was a fear of it happening again every time it rained after that; Location of the river; was vague during dry times; knew it was around Lake Ave., but went under the ground; Fairgrounds; was a week later; "looked like a lake" (Ad A): Government involvement; Danbury before the flood; Downtown Main St. was not an attractive place; a lot of old buildings; "should have been a park at corner of White and Main" (John); Response of the people after the flood; got good response from people they supplied goods to; felt kind of guilty having only loss a bucket and a mop
30-40 Min: Federal aid; the town was left to deal w/ most of the responsibility of clean; up; federal did some in terms of redevelopment; People of Danbury during 1950s; people took care of their own; everybody knew each other (mentions banks in particular); most were born and died in Danbury; sense of community; Hatting Industry; WW II brought in other industries, which lead to decline of hatting; most people had connection to hatting industry prior; hatting was great part of the community; hatting still done during 1950s; during 1960s it left;
40-50 Min: most people had connection to hatting industry prior; hatting was great part of the community; hatting still done during 1950s; during 1960s it left; many found hats could be made cheaper in other places, like down South; incoming industries did help Danbury and provide new opportunities; Flood impact on hatting; it had some effect on it; most of the factories were area of flooding; Length of clean; up; seemed like it took forever; their own personal impact was less; they were back in store by middle of week; opened by following weekend; most of the flooding effected commercial area; things for most part were back to normal after week (could travel around); Other people to contact; Lou Ginsberg of Ace Hardware; The Meekers