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Monday, September 16, 2013

Monday, 09/16/13 Longmont Flood Photos

With all of OSMP closed and the remainder of the foothills essentially inaccessible, I was forced to do some flat running from work on my lunch break, so I got out for a quick scout around Left Hand Creek and the St. Vrain River.  As bad as the flooding is, it made for a bit of an interesting adventure trying to get around all the destruction, closed paths, standing water and closed roads.  I made the mistake of wearing road shoes and I was sliding all over, essentially hydroplaning at times on the fine silty mud.

Left Hand Creek at 95th


This house was among the most severely damaged along the creek (at least in this neighborhood).

A lot of these houses really lucked out, missing the wrath by literally a few feet.


Pike road underpass (bike path underneath)


This is normally ankle to knee deep, now it is eating away at the banks and knocking trees over.

Damaged, but probably repairable.

Under previous normal flow, you could probably cross in a few steps, now it is really wide.


Collapsed pool





Looking East from 287/Main.  The cement path is completely washed out, I think all the way to 119 from what I could tell.

287/Main over Left Hand.  Looks like a crack has developed in the center of that buttress.

Now along the St. Vrain River.

Still very angry

National Guard is all over protecting neighborhoods, blocking roads and helping however they can.

The industrial parks along the river got hammered.  Have to wonder what chemicals spilled into the river.




I could loosely follow the path along the river, but had to really work at it, take detours and be creative.







Standing water near the fairgrounds.  It really stunk here, as the floods cleaned out the vast stables and left deposits of poop all over.


This whatever area was really toppled.





I was glad I quit following the path when I did and crossed the river on a road bridge (Sunset I think), as this bridge would have caused me some serious detouring or backtracking.




3 comments:

  1. Hi Jeff, thanks for the photos. Amazing! Do you have an email - I have a question about a project I'm working on. Mine is pnj@bauuinstitute.com. Thanks.

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  2. Crazy photos Jeff. We had some bad flooding in August 2011 from Tropical Storm Irene and we're still working on bridges and roads damaged from the flooding. I hope you and your family are staying safe.

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  3. Truly not the best of times. Hopefully that place has moved past that and have dealt with all that damage and mess -- especially the flooding, which have a habit of sticking around the ruined parts and areas of properties, which could lead to further damage to their homes.

    Gail Wallace

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