The Great Flood

The boys in front of the window

It was all rather anti-climactic the first few days. Just rain. Sprinkles. More rain. More rain. Then, it turned biblical as the rain just kept coming down. Apparently, we received our annual rainfall total in just four days. When local weathercasters described the amount of rain, being from Colorado they had to put it in terms of “snow” so that people would understand. Had that precipitation been snow, it would have been a storm that dropped over 10-12 feet. FEET! It was the storm of the century.

This is our back fence

After the first few days the creeks started cresting. Flash floods started happening in the foothills. Our ground here was totally saturated and huge rivers started forming in backyards and streets. Thankfully my Mom was visiting and staying with us in our basement guest room and she is the one who noticed it was wet by the windows. Then, when I kept checking on it… it kept getting wetter. Originally we thought it was the window well filling up and leaking, but then we pulled back the carpet. And then it kept on coming in. Finally after staying up all night, taking turns sopping up the incoming water and trying to stay ahead of the influx, Steve tore out the drywall and we found the culprit. A pipe draining right into our wall. With some hindsight we now know that the pipe was used as structural support for the wall between the window wells, and apparently the builders never thought the water table would get so high.

our side yard 

In the aftermath, we were fortunate to have FEMA come out and assess our situation. We managed to salvage the carpet and all the furniture, and just this week have gotten the gaping hole repaired, and filled the pipe with expanding foam. It is unfortunate to pay so much money just to get things back to status quo.

Many of the trails around here (and most in the mountains and foothills) received heavy damage and erosion, but they are finally opening up for running and hiking. It was a very strange situation to be part of a natural disaster like this. Thankfully everything that is truly important in our lives (the kids, each other) were unharmed, and my mom was around to watch and help with the kids since daycare was cancelled and the water just kept on coming in the basement. Knock on wood we’ll never have an event like that again, for at least a hundred years.

That, is the story of our Flood.

Lake Fezler

Our attempt to keep the rain out.

Soaking up the water

We finally cut out the drywall

Boden soaked after helping out with flood prevention.

Enjoying the open space once the rains subsided