Thinking of you good folks who are in that part of northern Colorado. Absolutely surreal.
And I know that one reader who was badly affected by Hurricane Sandy also just lost part of his New Jersey childhood. And a lot of businesses that got hurt by Sandy just got hurt again.
Take care out there, guys …
That’s some of the worst flooding photos I’ve ever seen. Except for the water, they look like earthquake damage.
Precipitation records broken from 1940 and 1919. What’s amazing about this is the scope. Every day, I read of yet another one or two towns affected. Today, it was Morrison and Evergreen. I did read that Boulder Creek is receding now, and the weather seems to be clearing up, though there are still more thunderstorms in the forecast.
And yet, two people decided to climb Long’s Peak?
And of course all this water is headed east, down the S. Platte.
http://www.denverpost.com/environment/ci_24089186/colorado-flood-officials-watch-high-water-kersey?source=pkg
I hadn’t thought about the amount of commerce runing on I25, which, last I heard, was closed, considering it goes over the Big Thompson, St. Vrain, and Poudre rivers. Well, I have seen a photo of being under, not over, the Big Thompson.
And only a short time ago we were worried about drought, and fires… and we prayed for rain. Too much? 🙂
Mother nature does love her little jokes. sigh
The Colorado flood makes our little 6 foot deep flood look like a party. Like Jed, I’m astounded at the vast amount of land this has affected. Some of the vids audio is just a loud ominous roar. It’s heartbreaking when you see all the devastation.
I know what’s ahead for them, the bs out of FEMA and the smell and the heartbreak of throwing nearly everything out (if it’s not lost forever down stream somewhere.) The old neighborhood where we were flooded is still not 100% and it’s been over 5 years now. Those who had to do a nearly total rebuild still had shifting issues for years afterwards. Doors wouldn’t open or close, screens pop out unexpectedly, cracks in the ceilings. And we were in the desert, I’m sure it’s worse in a climate like CO has – we didn’t have an ongoing mold concern after the initial few months of airing out was over.
I’ve read some about the fire victims not getting donations, and various other financial hardships that happened during a disaster in CO. I hope this is handled better than those were.
This is surreal. I live in Loveland, CO which is in Larimer County just East of the Big Thompson canyon.
The rain has been relentless for 4 days. We did get a glimpse of the sun peaking out from the ominous clouds on Friday, only to hide once a gain and with that more rain.
I work in Boulder and have to travel through Loveland and Longmont to get there. For the past 25 years I have taken the back way to work, but now there are bridges that were there last Wednesday that are completely gone.
Many have said that this is worse than the Big Thompson flood of 1976. Two main reasons is that the flood then was spurred on by 4 hours of torrential rains in Estes Park that destroyed the dam there in the middle of the night. A 30 foot wall of water roared down the canyon while people were sleeping. It was unexpected and the loss of life was much greater than this flood, for now. There are still hundreds unaccounted for.
Another difference between that flood and the current situation is that one back then was an isolated incident, one canyon. This one has the Poudre, Big Thompson, and Boulder Creek and St Vrain rivers all winding through narrow canyons and all feeding into the Platte River which will affect those out on the Eastern Plains.
The damage to the canyon seems much worst than it was in 1976. maybe it was the constant force of the pounding river as it reshaped the walls and ignored the new roads built after the last flood that were suppose to withstand another flood. Mother nature is indeed a bitch at times.
It is indeed surreal when you think of the number of homes destroyed by some of the bigger wild fires in Colorado, 350 in one and 500 in another and you find out that 19,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed by this flooding. The aerial pictures are heartbreaking.
Many, a majority of us in Colorado have not been directly affected as those whose lives have been changed for a long, long time in the future. We will live among each other and we will forget their anguish and then we will have parallel realities. So the best we can do is help each other through this moment in time.
Yes, we are glued to the internet and television pictures and videos of the flooding and it still does not seem real. The snows will come soon and then the new growth in the spring and soon the landscape will come back t o life and the scars of this event will be covered over.
Being pretty active as chairman of the Loveland 912 project and heavily involved in the Tyranny Response Team back in the 1990’s I get calls from our very dear Senator Kevin Lundberg in Larimer County Colorado.
He was a little perplexed yesterday when we talked. He wanted to know if there was a Citizen Alert / Bulletin Board system whereby ordinary folks could post about road closings, emergency closings, police barricades and other obstructions to ordinary life.
Sure, most cities, towns and counties have a web page with road closings and other emergency information. As our conversation progressed we agreed that it would be a great advantage to have the Alert / Board not be associated with the government at all.
On thing that got my attention in the current flooding in Colorado was how quickly the City of Loveland was virtually ‘shut down’! Every North/South route that went across the Thompson river was blockaded within minutes. They used police cars (lots of them) All of the unmarked police cars were everywhere identified with their colorful lights a flashing. Also employed were every city owned truck to block off entire roads. The city was effectively cut in half.
So, back to my point and question. Is there a good platform for this kind of request? We thought of Word Press because of its flexibility. Facebook, although very popular does not seem to fit the bill for what we want.
We would also like static pages for information about prepper resources, government sites for emergency closures. Most of all we want to make it easy for ordinary people in time of chaos in the height of an emergency to ask ” Can I get from point A to point B? and to be able to post that the police have road XYZ barricaded.
Does anyone have an idea about a simple platform to make this happen.
Perhaps this should have a thread of its own. This amount of destruction and swiftly changing landscape has many wondering if there is a better way to network during a crisis.
Tom, I just wanted to inject a thought on the whole internet as the main go to place – that’s based on the assumption that people still have electricity and are connected. Yes, it will help those who still have those 2 things, but what about the ones who don’t? – they will be the ones stranded and wondering what the “world out there” looks like if they want to try to leave or restock.
I’ve been following Denver Post’s Twitter page, they seem to have bloggers/twitter people providing updates pretty quickly. Even a few site links for road and evac info. It is rather scattered as to where to find what. The problem with Twitter in general is one never knows who to trust with the correct info, but the DP twitter seems to be good about sticking with the correct ones in the trenches.
naturegirl,
The situation right now is as you described. Right now the rescuers are showing pictures of the destroyed roads to the holdouts that made the choice to stick it out. I would assume that many mountain folks are prepared for an extended time without electricity or gas and probably have a good supply of of food, but when they see the damage and realize they may be stranded for many months most take the helicopter ride.
I guess my concern is for those that have those two things and are trying get from town to town and in our case in the past week just around your own town.
I rather expect that towns like Longmont and Boulder are going to be quicker to replace main arteries faster than those little towns scattered all over and in between. I’ve spent some time up in CO mountain towns and it’s amazing how they have plans in place to work around massive snowfalls and road issues (of all kinds) and shortages of one thing or another. I’m pretty sure they’ll conquer a flooded out situation too…..I have noticed from a few reports, alot of tourists got caught up in this and they were (reasonably so) completely unprepared. That added to much of the chaos.
It’s been over a decade since I was there (and planning on returning asap). Use to be those little nooks and crannies outside of “big” towns are populated with many ex-military, long time campers, and survivalists. They’re pretty tough and knowledgeable and adaptable. They are use to wildfires and all sorts of nature related catastrophes. They’re gonna have it figured out faster than anyone else will. They’re also going to be the stubborn ones who won’t evac, no matter what the potential long term problems end up being. (And I read about the group that made a bridge out of guardrails in order to get to the better side of things and be rescued. )
Nothing’s going to be fixed anytime soon. And yes, some of them will need help of some kind eventually as more time goes on. Food drops should be kept in mind, as well as other aids. But I suspect the areas that need help reconnecting will also be first on the list of all the people up there helping with the rebuild. Maybe it will turn out to be not as long, when that happens.
I remember in my smaller flood situation, there was enormous attention at first and for those first few months afterwards. Then they all kinda wandered off. My suggestion to you and anyone who has the connections – make sure the interests lasts beyond that initial period of help that cascades in. There’s more to fixing things than cleaning out the mess and putting in temporary fixed, it goes beyond. I realize much of this is based on finances and money to keep it going, unfortunately. And it’s easy to burn thru so much of that right off the bat. Anyone who can put together a plan for the next 2 years will help people more than one can imagine.