Flooding will cost millions

Rains too much, too late for many Colorado farmers

John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 11, 2006 at midnight

Text size  

• 0 Comments
• Email
• Print

DECKERS - The destruction that a surging flood wreaked this weekend on a canyon highway along West Creek in Douglas County will cost taxpayers millions to rebuild and could take all summer, Colorado Department of Transportation Executive Director Tom Norton said Monday.

"It's pretty bad," Norton said, minutes after taking a helicopter flight with other state and federal highway officials over the washed-out remains of an eight-mile stretch of Colorado 67 between Deckers and the Westcreek subdivision to the south. "It's going to be pretty expensive to get it repaired."

A storm that dumped 2 inches of rain in an hour Friday night pushed along debris that clogged culverts along the road. In some places, West Creek formed new channels that detoured around existing bridges, washing out parts of the highway, Norton said.

A four- to five-mile stretch of the road sustained the heaviest damage. That part of the highway will have to be rebuilt completely, Norton said.

Typically such repairs cost between $1 million to $2 million per mile, he said. Money for the reconstruction will come from the highway department's contingency budget.

Highway crews should be able to restore temporary access for residents stranded by the washouts within two to four weeks, Norton said. Complete reconstruction will take months, he said.

"It will take most of the summer to get it done right," he said.

While Norton hovered over the flood scene, residents below cleaned up their property and tried to restore some semblance of normal life.

The floodwaters left marks three feet high on a small home less than 20 feet from the banks of West Creek. The homeowner, who wouldn't give his name, wore a mask as he hauled wet, muddy furniture out the front door.

One of his two front picture windows was broken out, exposing muddy electronic equipment he'd placed in the sill. The contents of his home were ruined, he said, and dangerous bacteria had taken over.

"This is as big a disaster as the Hayman Fire or the blizzard of 2003," said Jamie Moore, emergency management director for Douglas County. "Really, it's as big an incident as we've ever had."

"This is a very dangerous situation," Moore said, as he stood near mile marker 93.5 on Colorado 67, where a hole at least 20 feet deep had been opened by floodwaters.

At least 10 sections of road along a 10-mile stretch between West Creek Road and Deckers had been washed away. Unearthed culverts, rocks and uprooted trees were strewn across the highway. Along some portions, water continued to run along the top of the road and onto the other side.

A woman at a home at 11875 Colorado 67, near Ferguson Road, had to be rescued Saturday after the bridge connecting her home and the highway washed away. Chunks of broken concrete lay several feet below in the swollen creek.

A quarter mile downstream, pieces of her yellow two-car garage were mixed in with broken tree limbs, mounds of dirt and large rocks.

There were no reported injuries in the flooding.

The steady weekend rain along the Front Range continued to create some earth-moving adventures Monday.

Evergreen National Bank was briefly evacuated after a couple rocks rolled down a hill and into a wall of the bank at 28145 Colorado 74, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. Damage was minor and the bank reopened for business within about 10 minutes.

While the storm brought much needed rain to Colorado, it was a case of too much too late for many of the state's farmers.

The heavy rains did little to resurrect farm crops that burned up after a massive irrigation well shutdown this spring, but farmers with access to surface supplies in swollen rivers said the water will help increase the yields of their crops.

Hundreds of well-dependent farmers from Brighton to Fort Morgan have watched crops wither this summer, and not even these rains could bring back thousands of acres of potatoes, onions and corn.

"We had already abandoned the fields," said Bob Geisick, who farms near Wiggins.

Geisick said his family faces huge operating losses this year because half of their fields were served by wells that were shut down and the other half didn't have enough surface water to survive day after day of 90-degree weather and high winds.

But other farmers with access to surface supplies from the South Platte River said the rains mean they'll be able improve their productivity this year, something they didn't think was possible nine weeks ago when the state shut off wells because hundreds of farmers weren't able to comply with a new state law on recharging the river.

The rain did not do much to improve whitewater conditions for Colorado's high-country rafters and kayakers, however.

The upper stretches of Colorado's major rivers got less rain than those downstream, U.S. Geological Survey statistics show.

"The best sites for rafting didn't receive a lot," USGS hydrologist Joe Capesius said. "Within a couple days, they should be back to normal."

The Boulder County Sheriff's Office issued a high-water advisory Sunday for Boulder Creek, but by midmorning Monday the levels had dropped from a high of almost 700 cubic feet per second to about 460 cfs. Normal for this time of year is about 225 cfs.

No problems were reported as a result of the high water, sheriff's

Cmdr. Phil West said.

Monday morning, Ricky and Steve Foster and Lena Greenberg were cooling themselves off in the swift-moving creek, west of downtown.

Greenberg said the high waters are great for jumping into deep pools - "Except you can't see the rocks" - but that she wouldn't dream of tubing in such conditions.

The sheriff's office advised against tubing and fishing until the waters recede.

Featured

• DPS improvements

  

  This interactive shows you how schools will benefit under the bond proposal.

• 2008 Voter’s Guide

  

  Use our Ballot Builder tool to compare your viewpoints to the candidates.

• Broncos Game Action

  

  Slide shows of the Broncos-Jags quarter-by-quarter photos from Invesco.

• Bronco Dean's rant

  

  Listen to Bronco Dean's totally biased postgame rant about the Broncos-Jaguars game.

• A Dozen on Denver

  

  Manuel Ramos' story is featured this week on 'A Dozen on Denver.' Check it out!

• Peak Picks

  

  Submit your fall foliage photos to our contest and vote on other submissions.

• Presidential Elections

  

  See how Colorado counties have voted through the years.

• County election profiles

  

  A look at how residents in each Colorado county may vote.

• A dream fulfilled

  

  A Rocky Mountain News and MediaStorm production