Major flooding in Boulder County
- Thread starter twobjshelbys
- Start date
This has turn into one of those "all the help you need into all the help you can stand" things. The river has rechanneled around the location of some water lines that run in the riverbed. I think there are some sections in it and other crossings for both water and waste water. There are breaks in lines where the pipes were undermined and joints in the span that are no lo get supported. Now they have to wait until the army corps of engineers decides what to do with the channels - leave them or rechannel back. This will take two weeks or more. Then the repairs happen but if they rechannel then a whole new distribution system has to be designed. Add another 6-8 weeks. This could be well into winter or spring before we can return. If they can get sewer we would be ok since we could haul enough water to survive in the house.
Jesus Tony, what a nightmare. I would haul in a portable John like what is used at auto races, and haul in my own water. Good luck dealing with all of that. I feel for you. Can't even imagine dealing with that.
Chip
Chip
Empty Pockets
ex-GT Owner
RPM217
2005 white/blue stripe
Vince H
GT Owner
Tony,
I realize I am not there to witness what you are going through and I will continue to keep you and yours in my thoughts. Regarding the sewer though it has been my experience, my family owns a pipeline company, that they will address the sewer problem as soon as possible. Obvioulsy safety of the workers and community is priority one but installing bypassing of any breeched sewer or gas lines will be up there on the priority list due to contamination issues and such. This does nothing for you in the here and now but I thought I might just mention that. All our best from my family to yours.
Vince H
The first and foremost priority is still search and rescue. There are still somewhere between 40-50 unaccounted for. Some may be in Hawaii for all we know but I do know they found my friends truck in the new riverbed. His wife and daughter were on national TV yesterday from what I'm told. I didn't see it. He was a teacher in town for over 30 years. People I know in their 40s and 50s still called him 'Mr Boland'. He was also a. Oach so I allied him coach. His name was Jerry and at 81 was still a boot. I would see him every day at 5:00 at the local watering hole where he would pay for two beers, take a good long time (they would be too warm for me) and then leave until the next day. I scanned slides he took on his Korea tour. Good bye Mr. Boland
I don't think there is any one who disagrees that the waste water system is the fist thing that needs to happen. That said they are restringing electric on new poles that had to come from Texas. With sewer I could survive because I could bring in potable water and have access to a generator. Meanwhile my friend is willing to put up with three of us. I will fond a way to compensate him
I don't think there is any one who disagrees that the waste water system is the fist thing that needs to happen. That said they are restringing electric on new poles that had to come from Texas. With sewer I could survive because I could bring in potable water and have access to a generator. Meanwhile my friend is willing to put up with three of us. I will fond a way to compensate him
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Vince H
GT Owner
I appologize. Of course locating the missing will be first and foremost. I was just hoping, probably in my own mind, that they would reestablish wastewater to you quickly because I agree you can continue on in a limited capacity with basic utilities. My heart goes out to all of you and I sincerely hope Mr. Boland is safe as well as all the others that are unaccounted for.
Vince H
Luke Warmwater
Permanent Vacation
It's really interesting all the focus goes to liberal Boulder county. Coal Creek is demolished and no one says a thing. Haven't seen the Gov or any press up here.
In all of this sometimes I get a chuckle.
I'm working helping a friend get his hardware store back on line. Last week we tore everything off the floor (and consequently, much of the floor tiles) put it outside on the parking lot and washed mud off what could be salvaged and tossed everything else. We filled a dumpster with things like saws, weed eaters, wood trim that got soaked, and other stuff. Especially hard hit was things like grass seed and fertilizer. Washed off things like lawn edging.
It's a small town hardware store in which you can actually buy one bolt. The first three rows of bins of bolts and nuts are full of mud. I've been cleaning and oiling them and putting them back.
During all of this we had a water source. It wasn't clean water by any stretch (you wouldn't even think of drinking it). My friend's brother (and partner) owns an excavating company and was filling his water truck from a hydrant. Yesterday they shut off the water to the property at the meter (which was on the same line). We tried to explain to them that we'd been using it for over a week and fully understood the consequences but they wouldn't turn it back on.
Later in the afternoon, at about 1:00, a guy from the subcontractor that runs our wastewater and water system drove up. The conversation went something like this:
Him: Did you fill that tanker truck from the hydrant over there?
Me: [noting I never witnessed it being filled personally] I don't know for sure where he got it but that might be the case.
Him: You know that water is full of e-coli
Me: [looking into a pail that has brown water with leaves and other stuff in it] Yeah, and it's probably got a lot of other sh** in it too
Him: [no response from the pun] I just don't want you to get sick
Me: [I've been using this water for over a week now] I'm just cleaning bolts
If the bad stuff isn't in the water it certainly is in the mud I'm cleaning... Oh well.
I'm working helping a friend get his hardware store back on line. Last week we tore everything off the floor (and consequently, much of the floor tiles) put it outside on the parking lot and washed mud off what could be salvaged and tossed everything else. We filled a dumpster with things like saws, weed eaters, wood trim that got soaked, and other stuff. Especially hard hit was things like grass seed and fertilizer. Washed off things like lawn edging.
It's a small town hardware store in which you can actually buy one bolt. The first three rows of bins of bolts and nuts are full of mud. I've been cleaning and oiling them and putting them back.
During all of this we had a water source. It wasn't clean water by any stretch (you wouldn't even think of drinking it). My friend's brother (and partner) owns an excavating company and was filling his water truck from a hydrant. Yesterday they shut off the water to the property at the meter (which was on the same line). We tried to explain to them that we'd been using it for over a week and fully understood the consequences but they wouldn't turn it back on.
Later in the afternoon, at about 1:00, a guy from the subcontractor that runs our wastewater and water system drove up. The conversation went something like this:
Him: Did you fill that tanker truck from the hydrant over there?
Me: [noting I never witnessed it being filled personally] I don't know for sure where he got it but that might be the case.
Him: You know that water is full of e-coli
Me: [looking into a pail that has brown water with leaves and other stuff in it] Yeah, and it's probably got a lot of other sh** in it too
Him: [no response from the pun] I just don't want you to get sick
Me: [I've been using this water for over a week now] I'm just cleaning bolts
If the bad stuff isn't in the water it certainly is in the mud I'm cleaning... Oh well.
I've been helping clean lonny's nuts. It was raining this morning early but by 9:00 or so had lightened up enough to make me go down. By noon it was raining and cold so I called it quits for the day. I went down to my daughter's place to try to sort pictures on the camera and watched the last Dome for the year (it's like we are in our own dome here).
I got a call from a number in Puerto Rico so let it go to voice mail. It was our FEMA guy. He needed to see the house since we are evacuated but had no flood damage. He said there are people making claims that don't even live here and/or have well/septic so aren't eligible for anything. We will get some temporary living but it's not much and I will give it to the guy I'm staying with who we agreed will get more than that.
Then I went to my friend's auto shop. He was there while his son did a brake job on a Honda in the dark. We did have a couple of our whiskey drinks.
There are about 5 or 6 aid agencies here in town. They are going through the flood hit homes and gutting them. They pull all the flooring and drywall up to 4'. All that is left is studs. Of course the "crawl space" which is just dirt on most of these homes is filled with mud. I took some pictures for him. It was hard. I will try to find their names as they are kamikaze teams that come in and do damage control. They are amazing.
I drove around for about 10 minutes looking at the hardest hit areas with Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb turned up on the car radio as loud as I could get it.
I'm beat.
I got a call from a number in Puerto Rico so let it go to voice mail. It was our FEMA guy. He needed to see the house since we are evacuated but had no flood damage. He said there are people making claims that don't even live here and/or have well/septic so aren't eligible for anything. We will get some temporary living but it's not much and I will give it to the guy I'm staying with who we agreed will get more than that.
Then I went to my friend's auto shop. He was there while his son did a brake job on a Honda in the dark. We did have a couple of our whiskey drinks.
There are about 5 or 6 aid agencies here in town. They are going through the flood hit homes and gutting them. They pull all the flooring and drywall up to 4'. All that is left is studs. Of course the "crawl space" which is just dirt on most of these homes is filled with mud. I took some pictures for him. It was hard. I will try to find their names as they are kamikaze teams that come in and do damage control. They are amazing.
I drove around for about 10 minutes looking at the hardest hit areas with Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb turned up on the car radio as loud as I could get it.
I'm beat.