Karl Valten
Sep 13th, 2013, 11:10:26 PM
As a heads up completely safe and fine as is my sister (Dani Reyok, et all). I'm currently out of the state, but I'll be flying back into Denver on Sunday and seeing were I can help with emergency relief.
For those unaware, the entire front-range of Colorado has been hit by a massive storm this week. About 15 inches of rain the last 3 days has lead to massive flash floods, mudslides, and road collapse. Many mountain towns are completely cut-off without power, water, or sewage.
I'm live on the high ground in Louisville, but the town of Boulder is flooding badly. Estes Park has had much of the area destroyed. A National Guard convoy finally forced it's way through flooding rivers to the town of Lyons to try and evacuate. The city of Longmont is almost entirely underwater as well.
A lot of my friends have been evacuated and displaced as living in Boulder.
Current confirmed death toll is 4, but that number will rise as entire canyons have been washed out and destroyed. Two dams have already burst, but hopefully the rest will hold. We can't handle any more water here and if one of those break, we could end up with tidal-wave sized walls of water rushing down the canyons.
We got a bit of a break this afternoon with good weather and were finally able to get helicopters into cut-off towns to airlift people out.
Thousands of people have been evacuated at this point and the damage is insane. The damage covers about 130 miles of space along the front-range and many houses and roads have been completely destroyed. We are well past the 100-year flood at this point.
We are battening down the hatches again as another storm cell is going to be moving over the weekend plus possibly another one coming in from the Gulf of Mexico. Will keep you posted as this continues, no telling what the damage is at this point.
Here are a bunch of photos of the damage so far. Fort Collins all the way down to Colorado Springs has been affected.
http://photos.denverpost.com/2013/09/12/photos-massive-flash-flooding-along-front-range-of-colorado/
For those unaware, the entire front-range of Colorado has been hit by a massive storm this week. About 15 inches of rain the last 3 days has lead to massive flash floods, mudslides, and road collapse. Many mountain towns are completely cut-off without power, water, or sewage.
I'm live on the high ground in Louisville, but the town of Boulder is flooding badly. Estes Park has had much of the area destroyed. A National Guard convoy finally forced it's way through flooding rivers to the town of Lyons to try and evacuate. The city of Longmont is almost entirely underwater as well.
A lot of my friends have been evacuated and displaced as living in Boulder.
Current confirmed death toll is 4, but that number will rise as entire canyons have been washed out and destroyed. Two dams have already burst, but hopefully the rest will hold. We can't handle any more water here and if one of those break, we could end up with tidal-wave sized walls of water rushing down the canyons.
We got a bit of a break this afternoon with good weather and were finally able to get helicopters into cut-off towns to airlift people out.
Thousands of people have been evacuated at this point and the damage is insane. The damage covers about 130 miles of space along the front-range and many houses and roads have been completely destroyed. We are well past the 100-year flood at this point.
We are battening down the hatches again as another storm cell is going to be moving over the weekend plus possibly another one coming in from the Gulf of Mexico. Will keep you posted as this continues, no telling what the damage is at this point.
Here are a bunch of photos of the damage so far. Fort Collins all the way down to Colorado Springs has been affected.
http://photos.denverpost.com/2013/09/12/photos-massive-flash-flooding-along-front-range-of-colorado/