Vernon K.
got going. They set up a big meeting out in Chicago, and I went to that meeting. But at
that meeting, Goddard was going to present the Corps' floodplain management program
for them. Fortunately, let's see was it Tofani? I think it was Tofani that went to the
meeting. He decided maybe--or maybe it was Reisler. I don't know, one of the two of
them went to the meeting. But, I think it was Tofani.
I had told them before when I found out what Goddard was going to do out there that I
thought it would be a good idea if someone from their office went to the meeting. I said,
"Because he is talking to the whole country out there, and you guys better be there to see
what he says and make sure that he's saying exactly what you want him to say.
So I
don't know whether my talking to them had anything to do with it or not, but they went.
So I'm pretty sure it was Tofani that went.
But, anyway, Goddard had this big program all laid out. He'd get up and start talking.
He'd say, "Well, now this is what we're going to do. We're going to do this, this and
this He'd get about two-thirds through and Tofani would get up and say, "No, we're
not going to do that." Goddard would look at him, "What do you mean we're not going
to do that?" Tofani would say, "We don't have the authority to do that. Besides our
policy wouldn't allow us to do that even if we did have the authority. Everything,
practically, Goddard said we were going to do, Tofani would get up and say, "No, we're
not going to do that. It was the damnedest fiasco you ever saw.
There hadn't been any coordination between them before they went out to this meeting and
here were all these people from the district offices expecting guidance on the floodplain
information program. All they were getting were conflicts. It was really a sad deal, I
think. It was partially due to the fact that they didn't
out ahead of time what it was
Goddard was going to present. I think they just confused everybody rather than helped
them.
But after that then they started paying attention to what they were doing and they got the
ball rolling. It was just kind of an example of how people didn't have much interest in it
when they
started so they assigned it to somebody that didn't even know the Corps'
policies and what the Corps wouldn't do under certain circumstances. He was going by
his experience with TVA and he assumed the Corps could do everything that TVA did.
He was going to have the Corps do all kinds of one-on-one help and things like that, which
the Corps didn't do in those days and they still don't do much of it. I don't think they're
doing it at all now either.
But, anyway, it was a sad situation to begin with. It got going eventually, but it just took
time to overcome all those hurdles. After awhile, the floodplain management people got
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