Instead of getting out and going food shopping or going for a walk with my daughter I’m sitting here listening to rain on the roof. I wondered how much we’d had so far today so I looked, 1.25 inches in 3 hours so far. It’s not supposed to continue long but people are sick of the rain. Cold now too, below 60. (closer to 2" in the time I wrote this)
Above somewhere in my county from Denver Post
I’ve already heard estimates of damage to roads at 150 million in Boulder County alone. Many in the city of Boulder report lack of electricity, I don’t know if that is just the people I know or if it’s widespread.
Great selection of photos from Denver Post
http://photos.denverpost.com/...
The names of towns are meaningless if you don’t come from here. We are basically a flat plain with abrupt mountains rising to the west. All of the roads leading into those mountains are washed out, not just covered in debris but eaten out from underneath and washed away. That’s for an area perhaps sixty miles long up and down the mountains, Those mountains are higly populated. As the waters flowed out the rivers and creeks away from the mountains they continued to destroy bridges and roads wherever they crossed them. First they overrun the banks, then they eat away the soil underneath, then they wash out the asphalt, road gone.
The waters also spread out every chance they get. Many low lying areas on the plains aren’t on any flood plain, they are just low, and so vulnerable to flooding. Out on the plains the damage stretches out for fifteen or twenty miles. The list of road closures is very long.
That’s just Boulder and the adjoining Weld County. (Weld is us secessionists from the state of Colorado that you might have heard of).
South of us is Gilpin County where it looks like Coal Creek Canyon has been cut in many places, I’d assume the RR headed over the hill to Utah is out. I see road blocks on the maps many places.
I’d bet the flooding is heavy all the way down into New Mexico, just not making the news as much.
I don’t know how long it’s going to take to fix this thing, a long time, lots of roads, lots of power lines and bridges. I don’t think the death toll will be that high. If you saw a creek running like something out of the Apocalypse and making noises from cars sized boulders washing down it you’d probably not go swimming. Most people have some common sense with these things. I’d think there will have been some deaths in some of the many houses scattered across the mountains, but not many, the missing persons numbers are simply people not connected with concerned families for now.
I’ve been taking a nonchalant attitude. Less water than during the rainy season in SEAsia. Actually this place isn’t made for lots of water. The death rate might end up being less than a typical day of driving autos in the US but the property damage will be extensive.
Still raining hard.