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.

Saturday, 09/14/13 Boulder Flood Aftermath

It was a nice warm sunny day, so I took the girls for a bike ride to survey the damage around Boulder.  The damage from the overflowing creeks is obvious and expected, but beyond that, it seemed as though the majority of the houses were pumping water out of their basements and drying wet items out in the warm sun.

In our neighborhood in Louisville, we were largely spared any sort of flooding from the best I can tell.  Our house was completely unaffected and our yard did not even see the least bit of a puddle.  The only casualty was a potted flower we had on the front porch that got too much rain, so we really lucked out.

A washed out bridge from somewhere up S. Boulder Creek near Cherryvale and Baseline

S. Boulder Creek, still high, but much below storm crest

The bike path under Arapahoe at Foothills still under many feet of water and mud.

Looking North from Foothills and Arapahoe.

Boulder Creek where it goes under 30th.  The creek has subsided significantly since Thursday, but is still higher than I have ever seen it during the Spring runoff and is very angry and turbulent still.

Scott Carpenter Park.  The water had made it all the way to the pool/skate park parking lot.

Time out for some real fun.

Much of the path is flooded still.  You can loosely follow with a lot of detours and road crossings.

DreamMakers pre school where we enjoyed a Jeff and Paige concert last Monday.  While we were attending the concert was when the wet weather was beginning and I could only wonder (be slightly concerned) about flash flooding and how it might affect this location.  The building is in tact, but they were shoveling mud out of their 3 buildings and I am sure much of the contents inside are ruined.

Boulder Creek looking East from the Folsom Bridge.

CU lot where the creek passes under Folsom

If there was one good thing to come from this storm, all the time stuck at home (combined with the cooler temperatures) allowed me to just about finish my long overdue flagstone patio project (with help of course).