"the planners’ joke – there are two things that residents hate: sprawl and density" http://t.co/CyFAENDRbZ via @Cocolaboca

— jfleck (@jfleck) September 19, 2013

From the US Drought Monitor discussion September 24, 2013:

Weather Summary: Rain lingered in parts of Colorado and neighboring states for a few days in the wake of historic flooding, but mostly dry weather thereafter allowed recovery efforts to progress. However, a flood crest on the South Platte River coursed through northeastern Colorado and southwestern Nebraska, inundating some agricultural lowlands. Meanwhile, the tropical plume of moisture partially responsible for Colorado’s flooding shifted eastward in advance of a cold front. As a result, 1- to 3-inch rainfall totals were common along and east of a Wisconsin-to-Texas line. The rain temporarily halted fieldwork, including harvest activities and winter wheat planting, but aided some late-developing summer crops. Even heavier rain, locally 4 inches or more, curtailed fieldwork but eased drought from central and eastern Texas to the Mississippi Delta. Elsewhere, generally dry weather across the Southwest and the northwestern half of the Plains contrasted with scattered showers from the Pacific Northwest to the northern Rockies. The weather change in the Southwest signaled the end of the summer rainy season, while dry weather on the northern Plains promoted winter wheat planting and other fieldwork…

The Great Plains: Like the Midwest, varying amounts of rain dampened the Great Plains. Heavy rain soaked much of the southeastern half of Texas, while another significant rainfall event drenched northeastern Colorado and neighboring areas. Both areas saw substantial reductions in drought coverage and intensity. However, little or no rain fell in several other parts of the region. In the heart of Colorado’s flood zone, an official observation site in Boulder received 16.69 inches of rain during the first half of September. Boulder’s previous wettest month had been May 1995, when 9.59 inches fell. According to emergency operations reports, Colorado’s flooding claimed seven lives, destroyed nearly 1,900 homes, and damaged more than 16,000 others. Meanwhile, month-to-date precipitation climbed to 6.80 inches in Cheyenne, Wyoming, most of which (5.80 inches) fell from September 9-16. Prior to this year, Cheyenne’s wettest September had occurred in 1973, when 4.52 inches fell. In Nebraska, a record-setting crest on the South Platte River passed Roscoe (3.20 feet above flood stage) on September 20, and arrived 3 days later in North Platte (1.36 feet above flood stage). Previous high-water marks had been observed in June 1995 at Roscoe and in June 1935 at North Platte. The Platte River at Brady, Nebraska, crested 3.23 feet above flood stage on September 23, surpassing the May 1973 high-water mark by more than a foot. Despite all of the rain, rangeland and pastures across some parts of the Great Plains continued to suffer from the cumulative effects of multiple drought years. On September 22, rangeland and pastures were rated at least one-third very poor to poor several states, including Texas (54%), Colorado (43%), Nebraska (40%), and Kansas (36%).

The West: With the 2013 summer rainy season having ended across the Southwest in mid-September, further assessment of the robust monsoon led to additional reductions in drought coverage and intensity in the Four Corners States. In southeastern Arizona, Douglas experienced its greatest monsoon season rainfall on record, with 16.24 inches of rain having fallen from June 15 – September 24. Several other parts of Arizona also experienced near-record to record summer rainfall totals. Farther north, some early-season precipitation from winter-like storms began to arrive in northern and central California and the Northwest. For example, daily-record rainfall totals were noted on September 21 in locations such as Redding, California (1.22 inches), and Roseburg, Oregon (0.56 inch). No changes in the drought depiction were yet introduced in the Northwest, but the region will be monitored as precipitation continues to spread inland. Nevertheless, precipitation is beneficial for newly planted winter wheat, which by September 22 was 59% planted in Washington…

Looking Ahead: An early-season snow storm will wind down on September 26-27 across the northern Rockies, while rain showers will gradually end in the Southeast. Meanwhile, a slow-moving cold front—and its associated surge of cold air—will reach the nation’s mid-section toward week’s end before weakening. A frontal remnant will move into the South and East early next week, while Pacific energy will arrive in the Northwest. Associated with the cold front, late-week precipitation totals of 1 to 2 inches can be expected across portions of the nation’s mid-section. Starting on September 27, heavy precipitation (locally 4 to 8 inches or more) will develop in the Pacific Northwest.

The NWS 6- to 10-day outlook for October 1-5 calls for near- to above-normal temperatures nationwide, except for cooler-than-normal conditions in a small area centered on the Four Corners region. Meanwhile, near- to below-normal precipitation across the majority of the U.S. will contrast with wetter-than-normal weather in the Pacific Northwest and a broad area stretching from the Gulf Coast into the lower Great Lakes region.

From The Colorado Springs Gazette (Garrison Wells):

“There will be some improvement across the area, but we are still well below normal,” said Mark Wankowski, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Pueblo. The wet fall, he added, is no indication that this winter will produce more snow than last year, he added.

“There is no correlation between a wet fall and wet winter,” Wankowski said. “Forecast for the winter is that there is an equal chance of below, above or near-normal precipitation. Basically, it’s up in the air.”[…]

Beating drought in El Paso County depends on mountain snowfall, [Kathy Torgerson] said. And what happens in the mountains this winter will be measured storm by storm. “There’s really no strong signal to drive it one way or the other,” Torgerson said.

From the Mountain Town News (Allen Best):

But what caught the eye of Nolan Doesken and his staff at the Colorado Climate Center was the rainfall patterns. In most such summer rains, the deluge occurs at 7,500 feet in elevation and lower, or in the foothills. This time, rain fell up to the Continental Divide.

“The majority of the water is still from the base of the foothills up to 8,000 feet, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Our analysis will probably confirm that. But there’s a lot of contribution of elevations above 8,000 feet, which is why water was flowing through Estes Park,” said Doesken, Colorado’s official state climatologist, in an interview on Sept. 19.

“This is pertinent to mountains towns,” Doesken added, “because mountain towns to a certain extent have always been conveniently, climatically immune to the worst of flooding. Estes Park, at an elevation of 7,500, would be at the low end of such mountain towns. Most of the flooding at those elevations has been snow melt caused after blistering sunshine rather than pouring rain.”[…]

But what lessons should be drawn from this rain and flooding along Colorado’s Front Range. The most notable takeaway is that even if this is a 1,000-year rainfall event in certain places, a conclusion not accepted by all meteorologists, the flooding was far less. In Boulder, it fell within the framework of a 50-year flood, maybe less. The flooding of St. Vrain Creek, which so heavily damaged Lyons and Longmont, may have been something approaching a 100-year event…

Many questions remain. How much should a community invest in a 200-year flood event? How much can it afford? Well-heeled Boulder did pretty well handling this 50-year event, but even so there were problems in some residential areas, where water cascaded off slopes. And the flood there in 1894 delivered more than twice as much water, about 13,000 cubic feet per second, as compared to about 5,000 cfs this time…

n my travels during the last two weeks, I only got a glimpse of the great power of this water and the destruction it has wrought —and this is just a 50- or perhaps 100-year flood. I haven’t seen the homes destroyed in Lyons, Longmont and Jamestown, nor the carnage in Big Thompson Canyon. Will people there rebuild again, as they did after the 1976 flood?

As a human species, we tend to forget. We know about flooding, but it’s an intellectual thing, an abstraction. But even when we know it form direct experience, it’s easy too forget after 10, 20, or more years. Much harder yet is imagining a future that’s not quite like anything in our recorded past.

From NPR (Grace Hood):

“So as the water crested there was a tremendous amount of I think earth moved in some cases to where the foundations to some of these tanks actually washed out underneath them,” says Dan Kelly, vice president of Noble Energy’s operations in the area.

The company reported four spills, amounting to almost 9,000 gallons of oil. In some instances the floodwaters quickly swept the oil downstream. In others, the company had to sop up the spilled oil or use vacuum trucks. Kelly says his company is still trying to gain access to a few sites.

“Due to the water, due to the currents, due to some of the other issues with potential pollutants — bacteria and some of the things we’re very concerned with — we have not aggressively pursued trying to get into some that still have risk,” he says.

The bacteria he’s referring to — from raw sewage and animal excrement from feed lots — have also spilled into floodwaters. Overall, state officials are warning people to stay away from the water. But not everyone can make that choice.

Riding on horseback, one of the few ways to get around near the South Platte River, rancher Kody Lostroh searches downstream from one oil spill area for a cow he lost in the floods.

“There’s a ton of junk in the water right now,” he says. “It’s just another thing we have to deal with.”

In total, state officials are tracking 12 of what they call “notable” oil releases in the region. Colorado’s oil and gas regulatory body has multiple teams in the field assessing the affects of floodwaters. Energy companies themselves are conducting aerial surveys of their equipment.

Some sites remain unreachable by land because roads are too muddy or have been destroyed. Overall, state officials estimate about 1,300 wells remain shut down.

First fire, now flood: The Great Flood of 2013 http://t.co/t8w1EEfFKc #NoCo

— North Forty News (@northfortynews) September 27, 2013

Trip up Big Thompson Canyon reveals extent of flood destruction http://t.co/XQzEmokHn2

— Coloradoan (@coloradoan) September 27, 2013

What's in the floodwater in Northern Colorado? http://t.co/VRQBxDzc7U

— Coloradoan (@coloradoan) September 22, 2013

Woman survives 1976 Big Thompson Flood, loses home to 2013 flood http://t.co/bGaeS8ZtWx

— Coloradoan (@coloradoan) September 20, 2013

From The Denver Post (Allen Best):

The recent rainfall along the Front Range was phenomenal, by some estimates a 1,000-year event in terms of duration, volume and area. But the flooding?

Not so much, at least as measured by an obelisk along Boulder Creek in downtown Boulder.

Human memories about weather are unreliable. During many years living in Vail, how often did I hear that the latest powder storm was absolutely the best ever? Plenty. Flooding is like that, too, but maybe in reverse.

The turquoise obelisk in Boulder provides a better measure against long-term memory loss. Located near the Broadway bridge, it provides benchmarks for flood levels. The water this year lapped against the 50-year marker. Above it are others: 100 years, 500 years and, much higher yet, Big Thompson, a reference to the giant flood in that canyon between Loveland and Estes Park in 1976.

I was at the Big Thompson disaster. I was living in Fort Collins then and was among scores of young men (sorry, women, those were different times) with strong backs who could be summoned in case of forest fires. My only fire was at an old sawmill site in the foothills. The joke was that one of us had set the fire because we were so desperate for minimum-wage work.

Then came July 31. It was hot that night in Fort Collins. It hadn’t rained a drop.

I was living above Gene’s Tavern, just two blocks from the Larimer County Courthouse. When the call came, I was at the sheriff’s office almost immediately. It was 9 p.m.

Being among the first at the command center at the Dam Store west of Loveland, near the mouth of Big Thompson Canyon, I was assigned to a pickup dispatched to look for people in the water near the turnoff to Masonville. Already, the river was out of its banks. From the darkness emerged a figure, dripping and confused. “I went fishing at Horsetooth (Reservoir) and was driving home and then there was all this water,” he sputtered. He was befuddled. So were we.

Our leader decided we’d best get out of there. From what I saw the next morning, that was an excellent decision. Water later covered the road there, too. I spent the night at the Dam Store as the water rose. Helicopters were dispatched, but there was little that could be done. Our lights revealed picnic baskets, beach balls and propane bottles bobbing in the dark, roiling water that raced past us, but never any hands summoning help.

In the morning, we found those hands. The bodies were stripped of clothing and covered with mud. The first I saw was of a woman who we guessed was 18, not much younger than I was then. This thin margin between life and death was startling in my young eyes.

Eventually, 144 people were declared victims of the flooding that night (although one turned up alive in 2008 in Oklahoma).

Estes Park got some rain, but not all that much. The larger story was partway down the canyon, in the Glen Haven and Glen Comfort areas, where the thunderstorm hovered. In just a few hours, it dropped 10 to 14 inches of water.

Downstream in the canyon, just above the Narrows, some people were unaware that anything was amiss until they went outside their houses and saw the water rising in their yards. It hadn’t even rained there. One cabin I saw a few days later was stripped of doors and windows but stood on its foundations, a mound of mud 5 or 6 feet high in the interior. I seem to recall a dog barking as we approached, protecting that small part of the familiar in a world gone mad.

At the old hydroelectric plant where my family had once enjoyed Sunday picnics, the brick building had vanished. Only the turbines and concrete foundation remained. In a nearby tree, amid the branches maybe 10 or 15 feet off the ground, hung a lifeless body.

The river that night carried 32,000 cubic feet per second of water at the mouth of the canyon, near where I was stationed. It happened almost instantaneously — and then it was gone. It was a flash flood.

This year, the flows peaked at 10,000 cfs, but were more sustained and, according to reports, the damage inexplicably greater in portions of the canyon. There were horrors, too, but this year there was time for warnings.

After the 1976 flood, rain gauges were sprinkled in the foothills of the Front Range, up to 7,500 feet in elevation, where most heavy summer rains occur. That telemetrically transmitted information alerts police chiefs and sheriffs to flooding potential. That warning system may have saved lives this year.

Where does volume of this flood fit into the context of flooding in the last 150 years? That answer will have to wait. Many rain gauges were swept away, so peak flows will have to be calculated during field visits by U.S. Geological Survey personnel. That will take several weeks.

One more banner of comparison was 1965, when rivers and creeks from Castle Rock to Lamar to Fort Morgan flooded.

The flood that swept through Littleton and Denver created a mess, but led to the rethinking of the South Platte River as an asset rather than industrial afterthought.

East of Denver and Colorado Springs, the same storms transformed Bijou Creek from a lifeless expanse of sand into an angry, snarling mass of water. At Fort Morgan, after entering the South Platte River, it nearly submerged the arches of the Rainbow Bridge. This year’s flooding, according to several eyewitness accounts, didn’t even come close.

We’ve had other floods, too. Even in the midst of the Dust Bowl, there were giant floods in eastern Colorado, both on the South Platte and in the Republican River.

My guess is that this flood will be the most damaging ever in Colorado history. Part of this is due to how broad the inundation was, from Colorado Springs to Wyoming. Population growth is also part of the story. Colorado now has 5.2 million people, almost double that of 1970, most of us crowded between Castle Rock and Wellington, a good many in the foothills, those areas so vulnerable to fires but also flooding.

This flood once again points to the importance of land-use planning. Where you put sewer plants does matter. You can’t anticipate every natural disaster, but floods have an element of predictability.

Boulder has had big floods before, most notably in 1894. It also had the direct lesson of Big Thompson and the local influence of Gilbert White, who died in 2006. “Floods are ‘acts of God,’ but flood losses are largely acts of man,” he had said. Boulder has muddy feet, but the consequences would have been much worse had the city not taken his advice and removed structures from along the creek to the west and resized bridges to accommodate more water. The obelisk is in his honor.

John Pitlick, a hydrologist at the University of Colorado, says the flood this year peaked at about the 50-year marker on the obelisk.

In one of his classes, he also noted that rainfall and flooding aren’t one and the same. “It is possible from a statistical analysis to be a 1,000-year rain, but you don’t necessarily have a 1,000-year flood.”

In other words, context matters entirely. Had the water fallen in a shorter time, such as it did in the Big Thompson in 1976, Boulder’s story almost assuredly would have been different. “We might have seen a catastrophe,” he says.

That leaves us in something of a no-man’s land, as Pitlick puts it.

This year’s floods were a big deal but, aside from individual losses, not catastrophic to Colorado. What lessons do you draw for future flood planning? That’s the question for communities along the Front Range in months ahead.

Allen Best of Arvada publishes an online newsmagazine found at http://mountaintownnews.net.

From The Denver Post (Tom McGhee):

The 1965 flood that devastated Denver remains the most costly natural disaster in terms of property loss in state history. It also prompted the building of Chatfield Dam and changed the face of the city.

In 1976, a storm dumped more than a foot of rain over Big Thompson Canyon and killed 144 people. It led to the establishment of safe areas and warning signs. A 1921 flood on the Arkansas River led to the rebuilding of Pueblo and the rerouting of the river.

Though usually tame, the waterways that tumble across Colorado’s rugged terrain have a history of turning deadly. At least three major floods over the past 100 years have left changes large and small in their wake.

It’s too soon to say what transformation could follow last week’s flooding.

“For a historian to predict the future is kind of like malpractice; we deal with the past, not the future,” said B. Erin Cole, assistant state historian. “They say history repeats itself, but it really never does.”

A string of menacing funnels materialized over the foothills on June 15, 1965, as a storm, which dumped 14 inches of rain in a little more than three hours, announced its presence with a blizzard of hail.

Jim Hier and a cousin were driving home from a job drilling wells north of Monument Hill. He looked back over his shoulder.

“South of Larkspur, I looked up at the valley where we had been and the whole valley was a lake,” said Hier, now 71.

The deluge began when Plum Creek breached its banks near the Palmer Divide, Cole said. As the water thundered toward Denver, “almost all the tributaries of the South Platte flooded.”

Hier, 26 at the time, and two cousins rescued an elderly man from the top floor of his home as the turbulent water was sweeping the house away.

The flood splintered homes and barns, drowned livestock and washed out roads. Debris that included butane storage tanks slammed against bridges, plugging the channels beneath them.

In Denver, the 15th Street bridge was one of 16 bridges destroyed. Somehow, the 19th Street bridge, built in the late 1880s, stood firm and remains in place, said Tom Noel, a history professor at the University of Colorado Denver

Over two days, the flood spread through 15 counties, inundating 250,000 acres and causing 21 deaths and $540 million ($3.9 billion adjusted for inflation) in damage.

Most of the damage was in Denver, Cole said. “It hit the most densely populated part of the state the hardest,” she said.

After the flood, the public clamored for a dam to protect the city, and Chatfield Dam was built.

As the city began to rebuild, some developers wanted to plant single-family homes along the waterway, Cole said. Instead, high rises went up, and over time parks and bike paths turned the once-polluted river into a popular amenity for residents and visitors.

The highest flood-related death toll was likely reached June 3-5, 1921, when torrential rains drenched Pueblo. Railroad cars were swept away, along with entire buildings, and after a fire started in a lumberyard, the raging waters carried burning planks through the city.

“Hundreds of people died, with some death toll estimates as high as 1,500,” according to the National Climatic Data Center. “Many of the dead were likely carried far down river and never recovered.”

Two notable September Colorado Front Range Floods. http://t.co/CPOluQzic0

— NWS Boulder (@NWSBoulder) September 22, 2013

A review of the September 11-18, 2013 Flood: http://t.co/pmchAzf10N #cowx #coflood #boulderflood

— NWS Boulder (@NWSBoulder) September 22, 2013

Floods have done a lot of damage to railroad tracks, too. http://t.co/O02pb63TeB

— Longmont Times-Call (@TimesCall) September 19, 2013

Floods have done a lot of damage to railroad tracks, too. http://t.co/O02pb63TeB

— Longmont Times-Call (@TimesCall) September 19, 2013

Big T flood survivor Joyce Kilmer tells her story of trying in vain to save her friend. http://t.co/grzFQmYadQ #larimerflood #coflood

— Reporter-Herald (@reporterherald) September 23, 2013

From the Denver Business Journal (Cathy Proctor):

“Some wastewater plants were completely flooded, some systems lost treatment capabilities for a while and some lost large segments of sewer lines, but the plant is still operating,” said Steve Gunderson director of the water quality control division at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. “Also, we’ve seen pictures of people whose septic systems were ripped out and we have had reports from three animal feeding operations that had impoundments, where the animal waste is stored, that were impacted,” Gunderson told me Tuesday.

The state knows that the wastewater plant serving Evans has a capacity to process 1.2 million gallons per day was completely flooded by the South Platte River, Gunderson said.

And while the state health department works to figure out what was affected and how, it’s also waiting for the floodwaters to recede to start a sampling program to figure out what contaminants ended up where, he said…

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has said that about 27,000 gallons of oil spilled into the water from storage tanks damaged by the flood. By comparison, the oil spills represent about 4 percent of the 660,000 gallons it takes to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool. The waste contained in the Evans plant alone would fill nearly two swimming pools…

The health department will start sampling programs as the water drops, but Gunderson said he believes — in the long run — that the flooded rivers will recover. “Water bodies have a way of cleaning themselves up, but we expect it will take time in some areas — the biology of the river has changed,” he said.

The rushing floodwaters probably killed some fish, but others survived and will replenish the stream, he said.

Click here to read the current assessment. Make sure to scroll down to the streamflow graphs. Thank you North American Monsoon.

From The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel (Gary Harmon):

Rainstorms that pelted the West Slope while pounding the Front Range last week closed the major transmountain diversions that fed hardest-hit cities to the east. Stopping the diversions, however, isn’t expected to translate into significant storage increases on the West Slope after one of the driest winters on record.

Water managers on the West Slope “never count on rain to boost storage,” Colorado River Water Conservation District spokesman Chris Treese said. “If we had gotten East Slope volumes, we would have gained some storage — depending on location. But short of 1,000-year events, rain doesn’t boost storage, it just maintains storage by easing demands.”

“And likely more importantly, the soil moisture throughout the arid west received a huge bump,” Treese said.

The river has since dropped, though, and the call for the Shoshone generating station in Glenwood Canyon is back on. The water level of Lake Powell rose about two feet since the storm, or about 200,000 acre feet, Treese said. That’s less than 1 percent of the 26 million acre feet Powell can hold. The lake is about 44 percent full.

Even with the storms, storage on the West Slope is about where it would normally be at the end of summer, Treese said.

Front Range water managers were filling Estes Lake, which generally contains 97 percent water diverted from the West Slope through the Adams tunnel, entirely on runoff from the storms, Kara Lamb of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said.

Denver Water officials stopped diversions through the Roberts and Moffat tunnels but officials said they didn’t know how long the water would be shut off because those tunnels respond to calls from the South Platte River and customer demand.

Water officials shut down the Adams tunnel soon after the downpour set off alarms, warning officials with Reclamation and the Northern Water Conservancy District that Estes, designed to regulate the flows from across the Continental Divide, was being overwhelmed. Managers modified the way the system works “on this side to lessen the flood damage that would occur in Big Thompson Canyon,” Northern General Manager Eric Wilkinson said. Flood waters were shunted into Horsetooth and Carter lakes for a few days until debris closed off that option, “and we were unable to alleviate some the flows,” Wilkinson said.

Northern has two canals that showed considerable damage from the floods, but the district fared better than some ditch companies and other irrigators, Wilkinson said.

Some irrigation companies saw the bottoms of ditches scoured so deeply by the floods that the water now runs below their intakes, Wilkinson said.

Making repairs will take months, but, Wilkinson said, “We hope by winter to have the system back in fairly good order.”

From The Denver Post (David Olinger):

Colorado is undertaking the largest emergency dam inspection program in state history, seeking to check 200 dams in 10 days, mostly along the South Platte River and its tributaries. All of Colorado’s high-hazard dams, which likely would kill people if they fail, withstood the recent record rainfall. But nine low-risk dams have breached, and an uncounted number of small ponds overflowed, contributing to the flood. Twenty other dams can be reached only by helicopter because roads below them washed out.

At least 55 engineers have offered to help the state dam safety branch with the inspections, and the agency has called all of its engineers in western Colorado to Denver.

In two days, “we had to write up the plan for what we wanted these engineers to do,” dam safety chief Bill McCormick said. “They’ll help do a workload that would have taken us six months.”

The inspectors will be looking for problems like increased seepage from large earthen dams, damaged spillways and clogged drainage outlets. Some small lakes and reservoirs might have to be drained for repairs.

McCormick, his deputy Scott Cuthbertson and John Batka, a safety engineer for dams along the St. Vrain and Big Thompson river systems, set out Thursday afternoon to see some of the known damage to the dams.

In Boulder County, at Pella Ponds Park, a trail system winds past a trio of ponds and lakes beloved by anglers and birdwatchers. The flood breached two, and their waters are pouring out. The parking lot is a cavernous hole, tipping over an outhouse at the edge. The trail, now a bumpy mix of gravel, stones, driftwood and landscape fabric, ends abruptly at a 10-foot-high cliff. The nearby St. Vrain River demolished this park.

“Utter devastation throughout the floodplain,” Batka said. “Whatever was in its path.”

Upstream, the river jumped its banks and formed new channels. The deluge filled McCall Lake, a high-hazard reservoir saved by its spillway.

At Left Hand Valley Reservoir, two spillways sent water over the edge. One, a staircase of concrete, survived with little apparent damage. The other, which doubled as the road to the reservoir, was destroyed. A 3-foot emergency berm now blocks the base of the access road. Above it, floodwaters carved giant gullies all the way to bedrock. It is among 70 reservoirs whose waters roared down spillways, some for the first time since they were built.

“This is a generational event,” Cuthbertson said, surveying the wreckage.

The dam safety program already took emergency action at 14 locations. One was Gaynor Lake, a Boulder County open space reservoir near houses and roads. When the lake filled, emergency workers brought in a backhoe to clear out clogged outlet ditches, leaving behind a mess of equipment tracks and a urine-like stench emanating from piles of dead cattails. Its embankment is temporarily braced with sand and gravel. McCormick watched the lake draining away for dam repairs. “We saw this as a serious condition,” he said.

He said Colorado residents can be thankful that its most hazardous dams met strict engineering standards and that grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s national dam safety program helped train engineers and dam owners for this crisis. He said he hopes that a massive dam inspection program will find any hidden dangers — and reassure the worried people who call his office daily to report potential dam failures.

One came from a personal acquaintance who lives near the Button Rock reservoir in Larimer County. “Everyone in this neighborhood is on edge,” she told him.

From CBS Denver:

Record flooding continues in western and central Nebraska as the water that inundated Colorado flows east, but it appeared to cause few major problems because communities were able to prepare.

The National Weather Service says the South Platte River rose to 14.2 feet in North Platte to set a new record on Sunday. The previous record level of 14 feet was set in June 1935. The river also set a record in Brady at 9.85 feet Sunday — eclipsing the previous mark of 9.6 feet. Records were already set upstream in Roscoe, Neb., and Julesburg, Colo., late last week.

Here’s the link to the Longmont Times-Call ‘Colorado Flood’ section. Here’s an excerpt:

“I knew a dam had breached above Lyons, so the cops and I thought there was a wall of water headed our way. I remember being kind of freaked out.” [Gary Lindstrom] said he was relieved when the roadblock was moved east on 66 to 53rd Street.

Here’s a photo gallery from The Atlantic (Alan Taylor).

Click here for the pitch:

All seminars are free and open to the public and at held from 4:00 – 5:15pm in the Saccamano Lecture Hall, Room 141 in the Wubben Science Building at Colorado Mesa University.

More Colorado River Basin coverage here and here.

#boulderasshats RT @areyoupop: Creek Surfer kicked out by police. http://t.co/AlWw5QzxOe #cowx #coflood #boulderflood pic.twitter.com/T1hWFg5m0S

— Laura Scott (@lauras) September 13, 2013

Click here for a photo slideshow mashed up from Twitter feeds, from Andri Antoniades posted on Take Part.

From The Greelety Tribune (T.M. Fasano):

As much as $500 million from the federal government could soon be pouring into Colorado to assist Weld County and other devastated areas with bridge and road repairs following the massive flooding.

U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., who represents Weld County in the 4th Congressional District, said Friday that he’s fighting for as much federal assistance as possible for Weld County and the eastern plains. “That’s what I’m fighting for each and every moment of this entire disaster to work for Weld County and the people of eastern Colorado,” said Gardner in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C., on Friday.

Lifting the $100 million cap on the federal emergency relief program, something that was done during Hurricane Sandy, and releasing as much as $500 million to help Colorado looks like a strong possibility. “Obviously, I’m going to do everything I can to work hard for the needs of Weld County as they are identified,” Gardner said. “This morning, I secured on the floor of the House of Representatives a commitment to lift the cap on disaster relief for Colorado. Right now, the Colorado Department of Transportation believes there’s a need (of $500 million) for Colorado highways, which would include Weld County roads. (Appropriations Committee) Chairman (Hal Rogers) pledged with us to secure that funding.”

Gardner said the next step is to get the legislative language done to come into law. “The disaster relief fund is capped at $100 million and so we’ve got to pass legislation to lift that cap and that’s what he pledged to work with us to do this morning,” Gardner said. “We did the same thing on the wildfire funding. Chairman Rogers promised and pledged to work with us, and within a matter of days we got the money approved through the House. I anticipate that we will get this language soon, and that could mean up to $500 million for Colorado roads.”

That’s good news for Colorado Department of Transportation officials. “What I want to emphasize is for the continued need for bipartisan support across the board for removing the $100 million cap on the available funding,” said Amy Ford, director of communications for CDOT. “From our perspective, it is critically important that this happens. We know our damages will exceed $100 million, and we very much are looking for the $500 million that the communities in Hurricane Sandy received. We’re extremely grateful for our congressional support on this, and encourage them to keep putting this forward.”

Gardner said securing the half-billion dollars in funding is just one part of rebuilding Colorado. “We’ll continue to work hard for Weld County and eastern Colorado,” he said. “In addition to the individuals who are suffering greatly, we’ve also got to focus on infrastructure needs of cities like Evans and downstream like Sterling, and we have to make sure those public facilities are up and running so that businesses and individuals can get back to as much normalcy as possible. We’ve got to help those individuals and make sure those communities are able to start working again.”

U.S. Sens. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Michael Bennet, D-Colo., also said they would keep pressing for additional funding following the release of $30 million Wednesday in disaster relief funds. “The catastrophic flooding Weld County and other Front Range communities endured literally washed away critical roads and highways and hobbled our transportation system,” said Udall, in an email Friday. “I will keep fighting to ensure that communities like Evans and Kersey are given the federal support they need to recover and rebuild stronger than ever. Anything less is unacceptable.”

Udall will visit flood relief centers in Greeley and Loveland today to assess the ongoing recovery efforts. Udall will meet with people affected by flooding in Weld and Larimer counties and will discuss with local elected officials the recovery efforts and the resources available for residents and businesses. He’ll visit the Weld County Disaster Recovery Center, 425 N. 15th Ave. in Greeley at 1 p.m.

“The $30 million Department of Transportation emergency relief funds that were released, as well as the $5 million that were released last week, will go to the Colorado Department of Transportation to be used on federally maintained roads and highways,” said Kristin Lynch, press secretary for Bennet. “CDOT will administer these funds directly and make repairs on federal and state roads and highways across Colorado. Since CDOT has not yet assessed the total cost for damage, it’s impossible at this early of a stage to determine how much money exactly will be used in Weld County. As far as local roads are concerned, the ones that are maintained by the city or county, Weld County can access FEMA public assistance grants to help make the necessary repairs.”

Lynch said when President Barack Obama declared Weld County a disaster area last week, it activated this source of funding. She said there are seven categories of assistance that are eligible under this declaration: Debris removal, emergency protective measures, roads and bridges, water control facilities, public buildings and contents, public utilities, and parks (recreational and other). So far, the debris removal and emergency protective measures categories have been activated. The roads and bridges category, while eligible, has not been activated yet, because a full damage assessment has not yet been made.”

Lynch added, “There is every expectation that it will be activated in the coming weeks/months, after the damage is assessed. When this happens, Weld County will be able to dip into this relief funding pool for help in repairing damaged infrastructure.”

Gardner said he would describe the mood among his colleagues from other states as “stunned” regarding the flooding in Colorado. “I don’t think they realized how bad it was until you start talking about it,” Gardner said.

According to Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper’s website, the state also has funding options available that include excess money in the current year’s budget and the existing general fund and emergency reserve accounts where the money, in most cases, will match emergency funds from the federal government or local partners.

Gerald Boland's death brings Boulder County flood toll to four, state's to seven (VIDEOS) http://t.co/VTSgdmcHZY

— DenverWestword (@DenverWestword) September 20, 2013

From the Associated Press (Ivan Moreno/Ben Neary) via ABCNews.com:

With snow already dusting Colorado’s highest peaks, the state is racing to replace key mountain highways washed away by flooding, in some cases laying down crude, one-lane gravel roads just to throw a lifeline to isolated towns before winter descends.

More than 200 miles of state highways and at least 50 bridges were damaged or destroyed across this rugged region, plus many more county roads. Fully rebuilding all of them is sure to take years. But for now, the work has to be fast, even if that means cutting corners…

Expediting repairs before winter is crucial, especially in the Front Range’s mountainous corridors, which receive heavy snowfall. Rerouting some washed-out roads may be all but impossible because many of them follow streamside trails used by settlers chasing gold and silver in the mid-1800s. The steep Rocky Mountain foothills offer no other access.

Canyon hamlets such as Jamestown, Lyons and Pinewood Springs lost roads when as much as 20 inches of rain fell last week, transforming ravines into lethal funnels of rushing water powerful enough to fling boulders and large trees and generate 20-foot waves.

Crews have laid down a rough one-lane gravel road to a Lyons neighborhood isolated by the floods. The improvised road cuts through secondary farm roads and across a football field and a bike path. The commute to a state highway, which normally runs just a minute, now takes nearly a half-hour. But it’s better — and safer — than nothing. That lane isn’t fully open yet, and access will be severely restricted, complete with roadblocks, so that crews using heavy equipment can collect and remove tons of storm debris and begin fixing Lyons’ shattered water and sewer systems.

From Governor Hickenlooper’s office:

Gov. John Hickenlooper signed an Executive Order for an additional $20 million for flood-related efforts, declared a disaster emergency due to the flooding for Clear Creek and Sedgwick counties, and authorized state agencies to suspend provisions of any regulatory statute for state business in coping with the emergency.

The total number of affected counties from flooding is now 17 and the total amount of state funds made available so far is $26 million to pay for the flood response and recovery.
The order states:

“On Sept. 13, 2013, I declared a Disaster Emergency in 14 counties on account of flooding. Since that time, the affected areas received extensive additional rainfall. As of Sept. 18, 2013, the National Weather Service reported that 7-day rain totals have reached as high as 18.1 inches in Boulder County, 12.4 inches in Larimer County, 15.6 inches in Adams County, and 11.6 inches in El Paso County. Initial estimates of the casualties and property damage are as follows: six persons are deceased, 17,648 structures have been damaged, which includes 4,047 structures that have been destroyed, 30 bridges have been destroyed, and 20 others have been seriously damaged. As of 1100 on September 18, 2013, a total of 754 troops, 19 helicopters, 20 ground search-and-rescue teams, and 67 traffic-control points were operational.”

The order formalizes Hickenlooper’s earlier verbal declaration of a disaster emergency for Clear Creek and Sedgwick that had activated the State Emergency Operations Plan because of significant rainfall to that area.

Also, the order transfers a total of $26 million for flood response and recovery from the General Fund to the Disaster Emergency Relief Fund. The order states:

“I ordered that $6 million be transferred into the Disaster Emergency Fund. The estimated cost of disaster relief so far has been approximately $3.5 million per day, with estimates that 75% of the funds ordered had been expended as of Sept. 16. As extensive relief efforts continue, I find that the $6,000,000 that was originally ordered is insufficient to pay for the flood response and recovery.”

Hickenlooper’s order authorizes state agencies to suspend the provisions of any state regulatory statute that would in any way prevent, hinder or delay necessary action in coping with the emergency. The order states:

“As a result of the recent flooding, Colorado’s transportation infrastructure has been significantly compromised, limiting the ability of the citizens of Colorado to access their homes, businesses and farms and negatively impacting our ability to provide necessary goods and services to the hardest hit counties. The severity of the damage to the transportation infrastructure, taken together with the brevity of time before winter weather conditions set in, requires extraordinary measures to assist in the reconstruction and repair of Colorado’s transportation infrastructure.

“The flooding has also damaged businesses and hindered their ability to provide their communities with essential goods and services including food and other daily necessities. Extraordinary measures are necessary to reopen food service businesses promptly in a manner that does not compromise food safety but also recognizes that the rules and regulations in normal times might be unduly burdensome under the circumstances.”

Here’s a photo gallery showing oil spills from The Denver Post.

Here’s a photo gallery from Estes Park via the Fort Collins Coloradoan.

From the Omaha World Herald (Nancy Gaarder):

Dave Rus, hydrologist with the [USGS’s] Water Science Center in Nebraska, said Friday that crews took a sample at Roscoe, Neb., and will take additional samples next week at other sites along the South Platte as well as the Platte River in Nebraska.

Rus said the agency will test for petroleum, agrichemicals, dissolved metals from mining, animal waste and untreated human waste.

Sampling will take place near communities, at locations with a history of sampling and at stream gauges so scientists can correlate the sample to a phase of the flooding.

Chemical concentrations tend to be their highest just before a flood’s peak, Rus said, and the geological survey believes the Roscoe sample will provide that glimpse.

State officials, meanwhile, urged residents to avoid the contaminated floodwater pouring into western Nebraska while offering assurances that the flood posed no immediate threat to cities, railroad lines or Interstate 80.

An underlying reason for the stern warnings is simply to keep people away from the dangers of rapidly flowing water. Earlier this week, as floodwaters entered Nebraska, a canoeist had to be rescued after his canoe was tipped by debris in the river.

Friday afternoon, the South Platte was slowly receding near Big Springs, a Nebraska town of 400 about 10 miles from the Colorado border. But waters were rising in North Platte, a city of 25,000 about 75 miles to the east.

From The Greeley Tribune:

The South Platte River near Kersey has fallen to a level of 8.72 as of 7:30 a.m. Saturday morning, putting it at below the 10-foot flood level for the first time since flooding started last week.

The Poudre River also continues to fall. It is at a 4.27 feet at the city of Greeley’s wastewater sewer plant in east Greeley at 8:30 a.m. Saturday.

Colorado Statewide Flood Quick Facts: September 20 at 7:30… http://t.co/tUSPZyqZeC #COflood

— CO – Emergency Mgmt (@COEmergency) September 21, 2013

From the National Weather Service Pueblo Office:

AFTER A VERY WARM AND DRY START TO SEPTEMBER…A WEATHER SYSTEM
MOVED INTO THE GREAT BASIN REGION BRINGING A PROLONGED PERIOD OF MOIST SOUTHERLY FLOW ALOFT TO THE STATE FROM 9TH THROUGH THE 15TH OF SEPTEMBER. THIS MOIST SOUTHERLY FLOW…COMBINED WITH MOIST LOW LEVEL UPSLOPE FLOW BEHIND PASSING COLD FRONTS ACROSS EASTERN COLORADO…BROUGHT EXTREME RAINFALL AND FLOODING TO COLORADO…ESPECIALLY ACROSS THE FRONT RANGE…SEPTEMBER 10TH THROUGH THE 13TH. WIDESPREAD RAINFALL OF 2 TO 6 INCHES WAS RECORDED ACROSS THE SOUTHWEST…CENTRAL AND SOUTHEAST MOUNTAINS…AS WELL AS SOUTHEASTERN BACA COUNTY. WIDESPREAD RAINFALL OF 3 TO 8 INCHES WAS RECEIVED ACROSS THE PIKES PEAK REGION…ALONG WITH POCKETS OF 10 TO 14 INCHES OF RAIN OVER THE FOOTHILLS OF WESTERN EL PASO COUNTY. WIDESPREAD RAINFALL OF 1 TO 3 INCHES WAS ALSO RECORDED ACROSS MOST OF THE REST OF SOUTH CENTRAL AND SOUTHEAST COLORADO…WITH LESSER AMOUNTS ACROSS PORTIONS OF THE LOWER ARKANSAS RIVER VALLEY. UNFORTUNATELY…THIS EXTREME RAINFALL ALSO CAUSED DEADLY AND DESTRUCTIVE FLOODING ACROSS PORTIONS OF THE AREA.

WITH THIS IN MIND…THE LATEST US DROUGHT MONITOR INDICATES AN END TO THE DROUGHT ACROSS WESTERN AND NORTHERN PORTIONS OF EL PASO COUNTY…EASTERN TELLER COUNTY…EASTERN FREMONT COUNTY…EXTREME NORTHWESTERN PUEBLO COUNTY AND LAKE COUNTY.

ABNORMALLY DRY (D0) CONDITIONS ARE NOW DEPICTED ACROSS SOUTH CENTRAL THROUGH NORTHEASTERN EL PASO COUNTY…NORTHWESTERN PUEBLO COUNTY…MOST OF CUSTER COUNTY…SOUTHWESTERN HUERFANO COUNTY…WESTERN LAS ANIMAS COUNTY AND EXTREME EASTERN COSTILLA COUNTY. ABNORMALLY DRY (D0) CONDITIONS ARE ALSO INDICATED ACROSS THE REST OF TELLER AND FREMONT COUNTIES…AS WELL AS MOST OF CHAFFEE COUNTY AND NORTHEASTERN SAGUACHE COUNTY.

MODERATE DROUGHT (D1) CONDITIONS ARE NOW INDICATED ACROSS MOST OF SOUTHEASTERN EL PASO COUNTY…CENTRAL AND SOUTHWESTERN PORTIONS OF PUEBLO COUNTY…THE REST OF HUERFANO COUNTY…CENTRAL LAS ANIMAS COUNTY AND MOST OF BACA COUNTY. MODERATE DROUGHT (D1) CONDITIONS ARE ALSO DEPICTED ACROSS WEST CENTRAL CHAFFEE COUNTY…THE REST OF SAGUACHE COUNTY…THE REST OF COSTILLA COUNTY…AS WELL AS ALL OF ALAMOSA…RIO GRANDE…CONEJOS AND MINERAL COUNTIES.

SEVERE DROUGHT (D2) CONDITIONS ARE NOW INDICATED ACROSS EXTREME SOUTHEASTERN EL PASO COUNTY…EASTERN AND SOUTH CENTRAL PORTIONS OF PUEBLO COUNTY…THE REST OF LAS ANIMAS COUNTY…NORTHWESTERN BACA COUNTY…EASTERN BENT COUNTY…PROWERS COUNTY AND EASTERN KIOWA COUNTY.

EXTREME DROUGHT (D3) CONDITIONS ARE NOW INDICATED MOST OF CROWLEY COUNTY…WESTERN OTERO COUNTY…WESTERN BENT COUNTY AND WESTERN AND CENTRAL PORTIONS OF KIOWA COUNTY.

EXCEPTIONAL (D4) DROUGHT CONDITIONS ARE NOW LIMITED TO SOUTHEASTERN CROWLEY COUNTY…EASTERN OTERO COUNTY…SOUTHWESTERN KIOWA COUNTY AND EXTREME WESTERN PORTIONS OF BENT COUNTY.

MORE INFORMATION ON THE US DROUGHT MONITOR CLASSIFICATION SCHEME CAN BE FOUND AT: WWW.DROUGHTMONITOR.UNL.EDU/CLASSIFY.HTM

SUMMARY OF IMPACTS…UPDATED

THE BENEFICIAL MONSOONAL RAINS OVER THE PAST FEW MONTHS HAVE PROVIDED RELIEF IN THE DROUGHT TO MUCH OF THE AREA…INCLUDING IMPROVEMENT IN CROPS AND VEGETATION…DECREASED FIRE DANGER AND THE LIFTING OR EASING OF WATER RESTRICTIONS.

THE SUMMER MONSOON…HOWEVER…HAS ALSO CREATED ITS OWN IMPACT WITH INCREASED FLASH FLOODING DANGERS…ESPECIALLY FOR AREAS IN AND AROUND RECENT BURN SCARS. SEVERAL DESTRUCTIVE FLASH FLOODS HAVE BEEN RECORDED SINCE JULY 1ST…ESPECIALLY ACROSS TELLER AND EL PASO COUNTIES…DUE TO THE LOSS OF VEGETATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF HYDROPHOBIC SOILS CAUSED BY THE RECENT WILDFIRES.

From KUNC (Luke Runyon):

Rain totals have been tallied. But [Nolan Doesken] says a full picture of the flooding won’t be available for some time, making it difficult to compare the storm to other flash flooding events in Colorado. During this storm, rivers flowed with such intensity that stream gauges were damaged or destroyed.

Some of those other flooding events came after dry spells, Doesken said, and returned to drought not too long after.

“The lesson is, we don’t know what’s going to happen next. And there’s no guarantee that we’re out of the drought woods,” said Doesken.

The Front Range was drenched. The Western Slope wasn’t. Neither was the southeastern corner, a pocket of which is still categorized as being in extreme or exceptional drought.

“There’s now this concern that maybe we’re going to see more big rains and more flooding, but the reality is, that weather events happen and then we revert back to our regular seasonal cycles. With plenty of meteorological ups and down to go with it,” Doesken said.

From The Greeley Tribune:

Evans officials have inspected nearly 300 homes in the past two days, the majority of which have been deemed uninhabitable.

On Thursday, officials inspected 166 homes in the flood area. Seven homes had moderate damage and were given yellow tags. One home had little or no damage and was given a “green” tag. The remaining 159 residences, all within the Eastwood Village Mobile Home Park, were given orange tags, which means they have severe or complete damage. Orange tags mean the homes are uninhabitable and entering them carries the risk of death or injury. Earlier, inspectors had deemed 104 out of 112 inspected homes uninhabitable.

Thursday’s inspections continued as Evans officials announced they had begun erecting a security fence to protect property in a portion of the evacuated area. The fence will help prevent those who do not live in the area from accessing it. No one will be allowed to enter the fenced area between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m., according to a city of Evans news release.

The enclosed area is roughly bordered by Trinidad Street on the west, Ash Court on the north, a line across private property, which will enclose both the Bella Vista and Eastwood Village communities on the east, and about 39th Street on the south.

Residents will be admitted with proof of residency. Residents will be asked to get essential property as quickly as possible and then leave the area. Residents may enter at a checkpoint at 37th Street and Pueblo Street from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.. Access also depends on the status of the property to be visited, the release stated.

Evans officials also announced on Wednesday that they plan to hold two meetings with residents to help keep residents informed. The meetings will take place at 2 p.m. Friday and 11 a.m. Saturday at the City of Evans Community Complex, 1100 37th St. in Evans. Residents with homes deemed unsafe are strongly encouraged to attend, according to the Evans news release.

“It is imperative that residents with homes that have been identified with yellow and orange tags attend one of the scheduled meetings,” the release stated. Officials from the city, Evans police and fire departments, FEMA, Weld County Department of Public Health, Red Cross, Weld County mental health services, Journey Church and the City of Evans Community Development Department will be on hand to answer questions, according to the release.

From The Greeley Tribune (Analisa Romano):

Jose Sandoval stood knee-deep in murky brown water on Wednesday several feet from his home, where floodwaters still flanked it on all sides.

“See where the water line is?” Sandoval said, pointing to a line of debris just a few inches from the roof of his home at Eastwood Village mobile home park in Evans.

As he pointed, his partner, Ruth Flores, waded up to their now-detached front porch, grabbed a lawn chair and set it against the window so that she could crawl in.

Sandoval had been to the home on Saturday, when he said the water was still chest-deep. He said he didn’t need to go in a second time.

“It’s ugly, ugly in there,” he said. “I’ve seen enough.”

Sandoval and Flores were some of the last people allowed to return to their flood-ravaged homes on Wednesday following the historic natural disaster that slammed Evans, east Greeley and other communities along the South Platte and Poudre rivers in Weld County.

Many lost everything. Some Evans residents on Wednesday stood in their front yards and spoke with their neighbors, while others tried to scrounge whatever they could from their homes.

At a community meeting held by Weld County commissioners Wednesday evening, questions abounded from displaced residents. The flurry of frustrations and concerns varied by the individual, but a central question hung over the heads of the more than 100 people there, as well as those standing helplessly by their destroyed homes: What now?

First and foremost, go to the disaster recovery centers, officials at the meeting said. There, displaced residents should find help from the likes of human services, North Range Behavioral Health, the Red Cross and FEMA. All of those affected by the flood qualify for assistance from FEMA and should register as soon as possible. The Greeley and Weld County housing authorities are gathering lists of landlords with any vacancies, and that information, too, is available at the disaster centers.

Weld County Commissioner Bill Garcia added that flood victims should also look to the faith-based community, namely Journey Christian Church in Greeley, for help.

Rick Hartman, a member of the Weld Faith Partnership Council, said 38 of the area’s church pastors have collaborated to make Journey their main point of contact.

So far, Weld County Commissioner Sean Conway said 685 people have passed through the disaster recovery centers set up in Greeley and the tri-town area. Of those, he said 550 have passed through the one in Greeley. Conway said reports of Boulder’s disaster recovery center show only 12 people passed through, and 10 have been helped in Adams County.

A humans relations representative with JBS USA said the company knows of 49 employees’ families who lost their homes completely.

Making progress

In Evans, Mayor Lyle Achziger said the city sent in a FEMA-certified team to search for people who may have been trapped in the mess and to analyze homes for their safety. All of those homes will be tagged, he said, with green, yellow or orange signs. The orange ones are not safe to live in or enter, he said.

Achziger said the no flush order has been helped greatly by Greeley’s assistance in pumping some sewage through a temporary line, and the 10-day limit is looking like it will come through.

“Folks, I think we’re going to make that,” Achziger said. “It might be tight.”

He said long-term, it looks as though the river has chosen a new course in a few places, which will take some engineering consultations.

In the meantime, he said the city will have to find a short-term fix — something Conway said is on the docket for many Weld County roads and bridges.

He said the county will focus on main roads used by the agricultural industry before fast-approaching harvest time, using whatever fixes are necessary to make those roads passable. Conway said the Colorado Department of Transportation has said it may be able to temporarily fill the section of U.S. 34 between Greeley and Kersey that dissolved in the flood.

Conway said the good news is the county has already repaired 10 roads that were flooded out, and road closures have dropped from 140 to 44. The county configured a map of alternate routes on its website for residents to consult before their commutes.

Commissioners also spoke about steps the county has taken to help flood victims, including unlimited vouchers for one truck full of waste to be taken to the landfill for free and a unanimous resolution commissioners passed earlier in the day that waives fees associated with reconstruction, like building permits and demolition fees, for those affected by the flood.

Fred Stenzel, who lives near LaSalle, stood up to say he had been lucky — he received “unbelievable” help from FEMA.

“There are all kinds of programs that can help you,” he encouragingly told those gathered at the community meeting. “We just have to be patient, and understand that the few of us in here, we are just a small percentage of those who were affected.”

No more tears

Earlier in the day on Wednesday, Flores wasn’t sure she would make it in to see her home.

She was wearing sandals — now the only shoes to her name — when she fled her home on Friday and needed boots to get to the far back corner of the mobile home park, where her family lived.

She and Sandoval ventured through the neighborhood to see how far she could make it in sandals, passing a mud-crusted stroller left in the street, fences folded in on themselves, and abandoned cars.

The neighborhood smelled at times like a lake, at other times a sewage plant. Mosquitoes buzzed over pools of standing water and, in the distance, maintenance workers silently worked on damaged infrastructure under an intense September sun.

“Oh, God, this is chaos,” Flores said. “I don’t even smoke, and I feel like smoking.”

Sandoval pointed to a ravaged home next to him.

“We were just going to do the roof on that, too,” Sandoval said of his work as a roofer. “We had the contract lined up and everything.”

Later, Flores emerged from the couples’ home with little good news. Their five kids, ages 5, 6, 7, 9 and 13, would be disappointed — the Xbox didn’t make it.

“I told my son, put your stuff high up, we’ll be back for it,” Sandoval said.

Flores said her collection of coveted Coach purses were destroyed. It might not even be worth the trip to get the few things that did survive the flood, she said.

“Your orange Converse are good,” Flores shouted to Sandoval from her perch outside of the window. “The bathrooms are both full with (expletive) mudwater.”

Shortly after the pair ventured back from the wreckage, crews dressed in wader pants began knocking on the doors of the mobile homes to be sure no one was trapped inside. Several National Guard trucks lined up on 37th Street, and firefighters stood ready to rinse off the boots of those who trekked through the contaminated water.

Roderigo Corral looked on as they methodically posted bright orange signs on every front door on his street.

“Unsafe. Do not enter or occupy,” they said.

Corral and his mother-in-law sat in their garage, beside heaps of ruined clothes, furniture and housing supplies that they dragged outside. The tree in Corral’s front yard in Riverside Park, just off of 37th Street, had been uprooted and lay across his driveway.

“Everything is gone,” he said.

Every few minutes, a few more people emerged from their homes with a singular box or container, walking silently from their old homes — some for the last time.

Through it all, Flores and Sandoval maintained relatively good spirits. Sandoval even teased Flores as she struggled to conquer a fence and get back to him.

“I gotta get a video, I gotta get a video,” he said, laughing.

Sandoval said Wednesday was a time to see what remained. If the flood took everything, then it’s time to pick up, and move on, he said.

“There’s no more tears to come out.”

From OurThorntonNews.com (Tammy Kranz):</p<

The biggest concern for the city [Thornton] is the breach of one of its 12 dams along the South Platte River, said Emily Hunt, the city’s water resources manager.

“We had flood water overtop five of (the berms) — with one of the five, we had a complete failure of the berm so there’s no separation between the reservoir and the river right now,” she said.

The city isolated the reservoirs, and because the city has multiple water resources the drinking water has not been compromised, Hunt said.
Repairing the breached berm will take six to 12 months and is the top priority for the city. It could take between 18 to 24 months to repair the erosion on the other berms.

The flooding in other parts of the city occurred from overflowing streams, backed up sewers and gutters and detention ponds at full capacity and overflowing “Too much rain in such a short period of time left nowhere for the water to go,” [Brett Henry] said…

The city did lose the pedestrian bridge over Grange Hall Creek, and experienced erosion in multiple areas — including losing a portion of the shoulder on 128th Avenue west of Riverdale Road, which exposed a gas line, sewer manhole and a communications conduit — but no roads were lost, he said.

From The Greeley Tribune (Whitney Philips):

Meteorologists predict that river levels across Weld County will continue to drop, slowly but surely over the next few days, and the receding floodwaters have allowed officials to assess and begin to repair damage.

The Poudre River, which peaked at 8.8 feet, is now well below the 8-foot flood stage. Exact levels of the South Platte and St. Vrain rivers are unavailable , since flood waters took out the gauging system, but water levels on both have been dropping and are expected to drop 6 inches per day, said David Barjenbruch, National Weather Service meteorologist.

“They’re still running high, but we’re getting there,” Barjenbruch said, adding that there are mostly dry days ahead.

As waters recede, officials are getting a better look at widespread damage to highways and roads. County and state crews have already begun repairs on roadways they can reach.

In the county, bridge, culvert and pavement crews have been assessing and repairing damage for days. Jennifer Finch, spokeswoman for Weld County, said crews are prioritizing roads that are important to both commuters and farmers.

“It’s also important that we look at the roads that our agriculture producers need to use because it’s harvest season and that stuff is timely,” Finch said.

Still, Finch said, getting travel routes back to normal will be a very long process.

“(Road and bridge crews) also have to be safe, so they’re doing a good job of not rushing it,” Finch said. “We have to be smart about our roads.”

Barriers still in place are there for a reason, Finch said. Some roads may look OK on the surface but could have underlying safety issues.

“That road could give way at any time, but you don’t know standing on top of the road,” Finch said.

While roadways in the county continue to open back up, there’s no such luck for drivers hoping to use U.S. 34 east of Greeley. Colorado Department of Transportation crews were bringing in heavy equipment and assessing the damage on Thursday morning.

They’re working on a plan to build a temporary roadway north of the gaping hole that would remain through the winter months, said CDOT spokesman Bob Wilson. Crews would start long-term construction on the old route in the spring, he said.

“We don’t have any time lines at this point,” Wilson said.

County road closures have inundated major highways, like U.S. 34, Interstate 25 and U.S. 85, with traffic. Officials recommend checking the CDOT and Weld County websites for alternate routes. For example, Wilson suggested taking Colo. 392 or Colo. 14 into Fort Collins, and Colo. 66 into Longmont. Wilson said many state roadways that are closed in the mountains are just fine along the Front Range.

“I know people are frustrated,” Finch said. “We’re all frustrated. We’re all dealing with having to find new ways to get places.”

Evans inspectors have worked to evaluate homes in evacuation areas, the majority of which have been deemed unlivable.

The evacuation order remains in place, as does a curfew from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. in those areas. The no-flush order is also still in effect, as Evans officials work on their plan of pumping some waste through Greeley’s treatment system, though officials say they’re making progress.

Trash pick up in the city will resume as normal on Tuesday.

Finch said inspections have also been completed on some buildings in the county but, of the relatively few homes flooded in unincorporated Weld, most have been deemed OK to live in.

Flood waters also did a number on the Union Pacific Railroad line between LaSalle and Fort Collins. Mark Davis, spokesman for the railroad, said much of the track around the South Platte is still under water, and crews are hoping to get a better look over the next few days.

“Water is still up over there, and we don’t know when that’s going to drop,” Davis said.

Greeley residents may notice rail cars with giant boulders chugging through on the line that runs from Cheyenne to Denver. Davis said those boulders are headed to the mountains to repair major damage to the line from Denver through Moffat on the way to Grand Junction.

With no more flood-related evacuations or rescues anticipated, the county is hard at work in the recovery stage, offering residents services at two recovery assessment centers, one in Greeley and the other in the Tri-Town area. Finch said county officials are doing all they can to get people back in their homes and back on their normal routes, but that process will be much slower than the speed at which floodwaters caused unprecedented damage.

“The recovery is happening, but’s it’s not going to happen at that same pace,” Finch said.

From the Denver Business Journal (Ed Sealover):

The state has about $400 million in its general fund reserve — an undesignated fund set aside for unexpected expenses. Gov. John Hickenlooper accessed it to help in the fighting and clean-up of the wildfires that devastated Colorado in 2012. And the governor pushed successfully for the Legislature to grow the fund from 4 percent to 5 percent of the state’s budget over the past two years, saying it would buffer the government against events outside of the state’s control.

Meanwhile, Colorado also has $32 million in its TABOR reserves — money required by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights to be set aside specifically for emergencies such as this flooding, said Sen. Pat Steadman, a Denver Democrat and chairman of the Joint Budget Committee. At times over the past 10 years, the state set aside the value of buildings to cover its required TABOR reserves, meaning it would have had to sell off property to access any of the funds. However, the Legislature has refilled most of that fund with cash in recent years, meaning it can be tapped if needed, Steadman said.

Questions remain, however, on how much the state’s general fund will have to pay toward the clean-up, noted Steadman, who was on a tour of state prisons with other JBC members Monday. Officials are expecting a lot of help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and much of the money for repairing roads washed away by the flooding will come through the federal government directly to the Colorado Department of Transportation.

Meanwhile, the flooding caused a shutdown of Aurora’s Prairie Waters well field near Brighton. Here’s a report from The Denver Post (Carlos Illescas):

Four of the facility’s 17 wells where water is siphoned from the South Platte River in Brighton were flooded, said [Greg Baker].

With good weather and temperatures in the 80s, Aurora Water crews were busy Tuesday inspecting the system. Baker said the wells that were underwater will have to be disinfected, but that is not uncommon when heavy rainfall has the potential to contaminate the water supply.

The facility was shut down mainly as a precautionary measure, to ensure that any contamination that spilled into the South Platte would not reach Aurora’s water supply, Baker said. He didn’t know when the facility, which pipes water from the north to a treatment facility near Aurora Reservoir, will be back up and running.

It’s a matter of need, and right now, people aren’t watering their lawns and the demand for water isn’t high either, he said. It is turned off during the winter, he said.

From The Denver Post (David Olinger):

The Colorado Department of Transportation’s immediate goal is winter survival in towns built along roads curling beside canyon rivers and creeks.

Last week’s deluge left little time this year to rebuild 18 state and federal highways partly closed by flooding. Asphalt and concrete become hard to pour below about 40 to 50 degrees, and snow often reaches the northern foothills in October.

With winter coming, “our goal is to get to where people can go from A to Z” on a patchwork of roads, said Tim Harris, the department’s chief engineer…

Harris listed six canyon highways in Boulder and Larimer counties as highest priorities: U.S. 34 and 36, and Colorado 7, 14, 72 and 119. But “out east, we certainly can’t ignore those either,” he said…

The long list of Colorado highways closed by flooding ranges from Sterling on the Eastern Plains to Walden west of the Continental Divide.
As a result, the permanent repair projects “could even extend beyond 2014,” said Mindy Crane, a transportation department spokeswoman…

The epicenter of flood damage lies along a triangle of highways — U.S. 34 and 36 and Colorado 7 — linking Boulder, Loveland and Lyons to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. Those roads carry an average of 24,000 to 39,000 cars per day. All are extensively damaged with closed stretches, leaving people in mountain towns no easy way out.

Colorado floodwaters a toxic stew of oil, sewage, chemicals: http://t.co/6D9AVUSfbe

— Shaun McKinnon (@shaunmckinnon) September 19, 2013

Oil spill along St. Vrain River near Platteville now at 13,500 gallons http://t.co/lZoULYBUp8

— Denver Post Breaking (@DenverPostBrk) September 19, 2013

Updated number of unaccounted is 139. We now have 3 missing, presumed dead with addition of 46-year-old Drake man whose house washed away.

— Larimer Sheriff (@LarimerSheriff) September 19, 2013

Photos of the Day: Boulder County roads the flood hit hardest http://t.co/z21UT1qPFm

— DenverWestword (@DenverWestword) September 19, 2013

City says that, in response to flood damage, Longmont residents have cut water use by 2 million gallons a day. #longmontflood #stvrainflood

— Longmont Times-Call (@TimesCall) September 19, 2013

NEWS: Despite floods, drought conditions still persist in more than half of Colorado. Rainfall was geographically… http://t.co/RmXTzoqVaa

— Western Resource Adv (@wradv) September 19, 2013

Below are excerpts from the September 17, 2013 National Drought Summary from the US Drought Monitor:

Weather Summary: The combination of ample Gulf and Pacific tropical moisture (in part from Tropical Storms Manuel (Pacific) and Ingrid (Gulf) which inundated Mexico), stalled frontal systems, and upsloping conditions produced widespread heavy to copious rainfall (widespread 2 to 6 inches, locally 12 to 18 inches especially near Boulder, CO) and severe flash flooding in parts of New Mexico and Colorado. Moderate to heavy rains (1.5 to 4 inches) also drenched portions of Arizona, eastern Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, south-central Montana, western sections of Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and northern and southern Texas. September monsoonal rains have generated welcome relief from the drought in the Southwest, central Rockies, and High Plains, but unfortunately have been accompanied by flash flooding…</p<

Northern and Central Great Plains: The Dakotas observed opposite conditions as decent rains (2-4 inches) the past two weeks fell on most of North Dakota, easing drought conditions along the western edge and southeastern section as 60-day deficits were reduced while 90-day surpluses were found. In contrast, most of South Dakota was dry, with only half an inch of rain measured in the extreme northeastern part of the state. Although near to surplus rains have fallen across western and southern South Dakota the past 60-days, the northeastern corner has measured less than 25% of normal precipitation. For example, Aberdeen (1.02”), Webster (1.20”), Clear Lake (1.12”), Watertown (0.96”), and Bryant (1.62”) totals since August 1 are at near-record dry levels. This dryness, plus the recent heat that caused loss of potential crop yields (especially soybeans) justified a return of D2 in this area. In Nebraska, rains were limited to the southern half and far western portions of the state. Weekly totals generally ranged around an inch, keeping conditions status-quo. An exception was along the Kansas border and in the extreme southwestern and far western areas where amounts exceeded 2 inches, allowing for some slight drought reductions to be made. In Kansas, heavy rains (more than 2 inches) fell across the northern half of the state, with up to 7 inches falling in the northwestern corner, while decent rains also occurred in western and southern sections. As a result, D4 was eliminated from Kansas (to D3) while a reduction in the eastern D0-D3 edges were made. The D0 edge in eastern and southern Kansas was also pared back. Some small 2-category improvements were done in northwestern Kansas in association with the heaviest rains.

Southern Great Plains: In Oklahoma and Texas, general improvements were made in western sections while eastern portions deteriorated. In the Oklahoma Panhandle, copious monsoonal rains that inundated parts of the Southwest and central Rockies and caused flash flooding also soaked the extreme western Panhandle (and southeastern Colorado) with over 5 inches of rain, enough for a 2-category improvement to D1. With lesser totals (1.5 to 3 inches) just to the east, a 1-category improvement was made to the rest of the Oklahoma Panhandle and in northwestern Oklahoma. Similarly, 2 to 4 inches of rain along the KS-OK border was enough to erase D0 in Kay and Osage counties. However, little or no rain along the Red River Valley continued the dry trend in southern sections of the state as D2 and D3 expanded in extreme southern Oklahoma and across much of eastern Texas (and Louisiana). 30-day rainfall was under 25%, while 60- and 90-day precipitation hovered around 50%, creating 3-6 and 4-8 inch deficits, respectively. In contrast, tropical moisture from Tropical Storm Ingrid in the western Gulf pushed enough moisture northward to dump 2 to 7 inches of rain on southern Texas. Frequent tropical showers have brought Brownsville, TX, 11.29 inches of rain so far this month, with Harlingen at 8.14 inches and McAllen at 5.99 inches. Accordingly, drought was reduced a category where the heaviest rains fell.

The Southwest: The robust southwestern summer monsoon exploded with copious rainfall (6 to 12 inches, locally over 18 inches near Boulder, CO) across portions of New Mexico and Colorado, producing severe flash flooding, loss of lives, and the destruction of property and infrastructure. The combination of ample Gulf and Pacific tropical moisture (in part from Tropical Storms Manuel (Pacific) and Ingrid (Gulf) which inundated Mexico), stalled frontal systems, and upsloping conditions produced the widespread rainfall. Other states in the surrounding region (Arizona, Nevada, Utah, southern Idaho, Wyoming, south-central Montana) and the High Plains also received beneficial moisture from the monsoon, not only this week but in weeks past. In Colorado, widespread flooding was realized from these rains on the Cache la Poudre, South Platte, Big Thompson, and St. Vrain Rivers where communities were stranded as roads collapsed. This was a historic flood (estimates are currently a 100 year flood) for the Front Range, and as such, many improvements are warranted. In some cases, 2-3 category improvements were recommended as 3 inches of rain is approximately 20% of the normal ANNUAL total at many locations. This event was not convective activity, but more tropical in nature, falling for several days in succession. This time of the year is also a huge consideration for improvement as it allows for excellent soil moisture storage going into the fall when evapotranspiration rates are much less as compared to the height of the growing season. In New Mexico, similar 4-10 inch totals (minus the excessive 18 inches) fell, also leading to a widespread 1-category improvement statewide, but due to the prolonged 3-year drought, 2-category improvements were very limited. It will be interesting to see how quickly and how much the major reservoirs in New Mexico react to these rains. Similar 1-category improvements were made in Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, and south-central Montana where 2-4 inches of rain diminished long-term deficits. Numerous flood warnings were issued by the NWS in these states, and with no surprise, most USGS stream flow levels were currently at near or record high flows. Although Arizona saw less rain this week, last week’s downpours were enough to increase flows on the Gila River that raised water levels at the Coolidge Dam by 7 feet, with a few more feet still expected.

The West: The heavy monsoonal rains that inundated the Southwest and central Rockies bypassed the West, leaving warm and dry weather instead. As this is the normally dry summer and early fall season, no changes were made to much of the region. An exception was made in extreme southern California where isolated heavy showers (1 to 2.5 inches) fell west of the Salton Sea last week, and that was enough to reduce Water Year-To-Date (WYTD) deficits and change D2 to D1. Similarly in eastern Nevada, additional showers (1 to 2.5 inches) continued to diminish the long-term deficits in the region, allowing for some minor improvements to D2 and D3 areas. In contrast, along the coast near San Diego, CA, D2 was expanded as the WYTD percentages were similar to areas just to the north (between 25-50%). In California, the 154 reservoirs are at 79% of average; last year at this time it was 90%. The reservoirs are not at critical levels yet as they need to be in the 30-40% range to be critical. However, the Department of Water Resources were informing water agencies to prepare for a dry 2014 as water deliveries will be less than normal so the reservoir storage can recover. In Nevada, drought declarations continued for a majority of the state, with agriculture the hardest hit from irrigation restrictions and cattle ranchers selling off more of their herd due to lack of grazing land.

A HUGE improvement in drought last week. Still extreme & exceptional in parts of SE Colorado. #cowx #drought #coflood pic.twitter.com/JjQIrz5Wv5

— ColoClimateCenter (@ColoradoClimate) September 19, 2013

RT @DroughtCenter Moderate #drought down to 48.19% of Lower 48; exceptional nearly erased http://t.co/ZyTEqg8AG0 @Drought_Info @JohnNOAA

— jfleck (@jfleck) September 19, 2013