Richard Burkert Quotations

This was new and fresh and painful for people at that time. This affected Americans in a profound and personal way.

Here's a community that faced the worst that man or nature could throw at it, but they were able to put their lives back to normal.

People knew it was a bad dam. People talked every spring that it was going to break. They just didn't know what the consequences would be.

There was just a relentless echo in the newspaper. This town was going to be rebuilt and be even better.

It's more than just a disaster. It was the biggest story of the late 19th century.

If you can see your community getting back to order in a reasonable period of time, it'll recover. If there's a kind of prolonged period where it's not clear if life's ever going to go back to normal, those communities don't do as well.