Name: When the price of oil falls: High hopes and hard times in Williston, North Dakota
Uploaded: 2015-02-19
Duration: 6 min 10 s
Description: As Boomtown USA faces a possible bust, one family continues to prosper, while another one struggles. Read more, here.

Oil was discovered over by, Tioga, which is about, 45 miles from Williston. Back in, in the 50s, that was the first oil boom, so to speak. And then, in the late 70s to, about 1980, 1981, we had our second oil boom and bust, unfortunately. And, now we're living through. Another one. Price of oil obviously affects the way things do happen here. I personally firmly believe that this is just a lull in the storm. We can't control it, but but there again we still know that oil's in the ground and, and then eventually eventually it'll come back. [ MUSIC ] Living in a fifth wheel is one thing, but living in a fifth wheel in North Dakota is a totally different ball game. Everything freezes, it doesn't. No matter what you do to prepare for the winter, no matter what you do, something will freeze. And it's a catastrophe, and it's horrible. [ MUSIC ] We live in I guess a gated community. The gate's not locked yet, but it's [ LAUGH ] not it's not completed yet. They're building new townhouses everywhere, so. You know, 700 units are supposed to go in here. << Before North Dakota, we lived in Stevenson, Washington. I was always looking for work. There was none to be found. I searched for probably two years straight looking for work. << Lived in a small town, [ UNKNOWN ] Michigan. I had worked for a year in a machine shop and. Was laid off and I had one unemployment check left. I worked for a local hospital doing registration. The pay was not good at all. I was making $ 12. 88 an hour. I heard about North Dakota from my second cousin who said, there's lots of work here, this is a town that's booming, you need to get here right now. I just decided it was time to do something different and, so I got on Craigslist, and I kept hearing about Wilston, North Dakota. I told him you either have to make it or I guess you're gonna have to stay there because we don't have the money to bring you home so. [ LAUGH ]. There was a lot a work, a lot a new construction for the floor covering. But it was nothing I, I had gotten a taste of it. And I knew I had enough money after two weeks to get home and get my family back here. So, I told her to quit your job. [ LAUGH ] Here we are. [ MUSIC ] We have so many people who have really came here from suppressed economic situations, and other places, and they feel like this is, this is it for them. If they can't make it here, they don't know what they are going to do. Back at home, we were struggling very very much so, even more than we're struggling here now. We just wanted to have more opportunity for our life. And for our kids, and we decided to take a huge risk. We finally made our decision that we were gonna come here. I got the job at JMAC Resources by going in there, and they had a list of opening job positions. And it just so happened they were looking for rock crushing operators, and. That's what I do. They started me out at 21 dollars an hour and we were working seven days a week. So I had a lot of overtime and it was good money while it lasted. I have made more in a month than I ever did back in Michigan in a year. I think her jaw kind of dropped and said. Why haven't you been doing this back home? [ LAUGH ] Now I do office administration, and I do this, a little bit of accounting, and shopping for the office, and things like that. And I absolutely love it. I get like a thousand dollars a month, housing allowance, to go toward my rent here. I make about three times. The amount of money here than I did in Michigan. So it's a huge difference. It was life changing for sure. [ MUSIC ] I do worry about the downturn. One thing that. I think we all learned, those of us who live in this area, and especially in the area that is so dependant on an oil industry is that you learn to not rock in too much fear because you just never know what could possibly happen. [ MUSIC ] The trailer had a lot of issues. Our water was freezing. Our breakers kept popping. We had no heat for a couple nights. So I told my foreman I had to take a couple days off. And I did, and I got let go for it. That was it, I was done, out the door, no more working for me. I can't find an equipment operating job, and that's, that's unheard of in North Dakota. [ MUSIC ]. I've had a couple interviews that were like entry level. About 100 resumes to all the major corporations. Oil service companies. A couple of companies have told me they're not hiring, due to the oil prices plummeting and they're laying a bunch of people off. I always tell my family in Michigan, it's hard to imagine, until you're here, but it feels like everyday is. Tax refund time. [ LAUGHTER ] So, hat's the only way I could really explain it. We've come so far, you know? It's been a life changer. Just going from where we were and the amount of money we were making and what we were surviving on. And, and, we have what we need now. And it kind of feels a little bit like failure, but we have a lot of hope that things will change. There is hope. [ LAUGH ] There's always hope. [ MUSIC ]

As Boomtown USA faces a possible bust, one family continues to prosper, while another one struggles. Read more, here.