Flooding in Boulder

[Business Attorney]

Steve, I woke up this morning to see pictures of flooding in Boulder. Are you on high ground?

[vangogh]

High enough I hope. My place is on the second story with nothing, but a car park below me, so I don't expect the water to get inside my place. Fortunately I don't have to go anywhere today and can stay inside.

It's rained more in the last 24 hours than it ever has since I've been here. It feels like it's rained more than in all the years I've been here combined. The sound of it on the roof has kept me awake the last couple of nights. It was so heavy it sounded like it was inside. There were flash flood warnings all last night and I think the creek might have overflowed into the street at the corner. This is a creek that's often bone dry this time of year.

Usually this time of year we're in fire season. Crazy to think this year it's flood season.

[KristineS]

I saw news reports about this and was worried about you too, Steve. No wonder the softball game didn't happen last night. Yikes!

[vangogh]

I was just talking to one of my neighbors. His place is in the same building as mine. He has 8 inches of standing water in his basement. Apparently I was wrong about the creek overflowing into the street next to me too. He said what happened was flash flooding on the other side from my place a couple of blocks down formed a river that made a right turn and came down our block last night.

I'm ok, but this is the most water I've ever seen here.

[vangogh]

It still hasn't stopped raining. It's crazy. As of 6PM tonight (it's just after midnight now) we'd received close to 12.5 inches of rain since Monday night when this started. The worst was last night. Between 6:00PM and 9:15 this morning we received over 7 inches of rain. Looks like we might have gotten as much as 10 inches over a 24 hour period, which is a record. The previous record of 4.8 inches was in 1919. In 3 days we set a record for rainfall in the month of September.

Unfortunately 3 people have lost their lives so far. Hopefully no more.

[KristineS]

I'll definitely second you on that no more loss of life! The pictures from your area are wild. You all have a lot of water rushing around there.

Stay safe and dry!

[vangogh]

I'm actually fine where I am. I currently live on the other side of town from the mountains so while there was a lot of water by my place yesterday, there was never a moment where I didn't feel safe. Dry was another story, but still I was fortunate. We didn't get as much rain last night as reports suggested and believe it or not it's not raining right now. More is coming and continuing through the weekend, but hopefully the worst is behind us.

While today is better, the city of Boulder is officially closed today. I assume a few things are open, but most businesses are closed for the day. Not mine though.

[Fulcrum]

Let's look on the bright side. Aside from the tragic loss of life, imagine if this type of weather arrived in a couple of months. I may be Canadian, but even the thought of that much precipitation as snow makes me nervous.

[vangogh]

I don't even want to think about how much snow it would have been. And we might still have ended up with flooding after a snow. Most of the water here originates as snow in the mountains. When the weather warms up and it melts if flows down the mountains. It probably wouldn't have been as devastating if it fell as snow. Then again we wouldn't know since we'd all be under the snow pack.

Some areas here were hit much worse than others. I saw Estes Park (just outside of Rocky Mountain National Park) has advised no one visit for about a month. Roads aren't expected to be fixed for about a year.

[KristineS]

Video and pictures from Boulder and the surrounding area are unreal. So much damage! I feel for the poor people who've lost their homes and businesses.