Colorado Flooding
POSTED BY: BYTEMITE
UPDATED: Monday, April 7, 2025 14:40
VIEWED: 4193
PAGE 1 of 3
Looking for safety report from Colorado browncoats, and speculations about whether the floods are in any way connected to the wildfires last year.
Hope people are okay.
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I am assuming the lack of response here indicates even more of a serious situation than is even readily apparent.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324576304579070993584463
288.html
I think most of mainstream media thinks the wildfire scars have made the flooding worse than it could have been.
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Disobedience is not an issue if obedience is not the goal.
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There aren't many other Coloradoans on this site, but I'm doing okay. I sort of live on a hill and I'm not near any rivers. The state as a whole, though, is in bad shape. What I'm seeing on the news is only the worst of it, like Boulder Creek and the St. Vrain river, but there isn't a river in central or northern Colorado that isn't flooding as far as I can tell. The Poudre in Fort Collins, the Big Thompson in Estes Park and Loveland, Ralston Creek in Arvada, and countless other bodies of water have overflowed their banks. By miles. Entire sections of highway up the mountains are simply gone. Every major school district is shut down, either because they're flooded or too many roads are closed for them to function. Same with universities. Phone communication has been knocked out in several cities. Rescue helicopters have been flying over my house, probably towards Lyons and Estes Park, which have between zero and one roadway out of them.
The sun came out today, though. Unfortunately, that's likely to be a temporary condition and it might rain again on Sunday.
As to any relation to wildfires... well,I don't know, but average annual rainfall for the state is around 15" and there are areas that got that much in the last two days, and most other areas got close to 2/3 that amount. It's a semi-arid state, and it's just not built for that much water to come through it. The ground got saturated and the rivers swelled and burst. A lot of the soil is clay, which can't be helping the mudslides and rockslides in the mountains. Roads and bridges are sliding away all over the place in a similar manner. Trees are halfway submerged or torn out of the ground. Nothing could have really stopped that.
So yeah, it's bad. I'm not personally trapped in my city, but it will certainly be difficult to get farther than 10 to 30 miles in any given direction for the foreseeable future. I assume repairing the interstates will be the first priority, but that could easily take months.
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
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Hey PhoenixRose, good to hear from you. Glad you're not in the thick of things.
Shame about the damages and the roads... I wonder if there will be federal funding supplied to help infrastructure repairs. The budgets have been tight recently from what I hear.
I know of one more person in Colorado. Pretty sure Mal4Prez lives somewhere near Boulder, which is one of the nasty spots. Here's hoping she's okay - and also that she gets internet access soon if she doesn't have it.
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Federal funds have already been requested and granted for several counties with the worst flooding. I want to say Boulder, Larimer, Arapahoe, and Weld counties have all been declared federal disaster areas and will receive federal funds. I'm not saying it will cover everything, because it won't, but it will help.
As far as I know there's no phones or internet in Boulder, Estes Park, or Lyons. I'm not even sure there's power to the majority of the area. If Mal4Prez is up there, she's probably not going to be in touch for a few more days.
The good news is that fatalities are actually quite low. When the Big Thompson river flooded in 1976, nearly 150 people died. Flooding of (pretty literally) every river in the state in 2013, and confirmed deaths so far are in the single digits. So a lot of stuff is being destroyed, but far more people are safe and alive. Makes me fairly confident that most of us will come through just fine, since the flash floods are the real danger and those are less of a threat than they were yesterday. Unfortunately, quite a few people will come through it and be nigh-homeless for a time, since there are whole houses under water, but at least they'll come through it.
The first aerial shots were taken today once the skies cleared. It's completely mind-boggling stuff. I was watching news footage of what was supposedly part of my own town and didn't even recognize it. I think it was the southeast corner, judging by the orientation of the mountains, but I couldn't actually identify anything I was seeing because most of it was water with some buildings poking out. The roads were hidden or missing, as were any other land features.
So, definitely going to take time... probably years... of cleanup. The worst/weirdest part is that we're not even the only place being hit with storms and potential flooding right now. I watched some of the weather channel coverage of the floods, but they were also talking about New York and the Gulf Coast being threatened by heavy rain storms and the occasional flood watch.
You know, I'll be really surprised if no one starts talking about the apocalypse. This sort of thing must just be a boon to people who love predicting doomsday.
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
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Terrifying space monkeys double post
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Well, I for one am glad to see that terrifying space monkey and know she's okay. I haven't heard much--been avoiding the news except on the internet for quite some time now and tend to shy away from the details, they sadden me so.
And yes, fires ALWAYS make the next season's flooding worse, as So. Ca.!
I hope things settle down and my heart goes out to those involved...and now I'm worried about Mal4, too...
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Hmmmm, Mal4 hasn't been around since Sept. 1 apparently...messaged her, hope she's okay. We got any other members out that way?
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