On July 31, 1976 the Big Thomson River below Rocky Mountain National Park received 12 inches of rain in four hours. A 20 foot wall of water came down the Canyon and killed 143 people. Five bodies were never found.
Many of the dead were campers celebrating Colorado’s Centennial.
Surprising that this could happen before the climate dice were loaded. Obama says that floods are getting worse now, because he read that on the Internet somewhere.
Reblogged this on The Firewall.
I lived in Loveland at the time. Upon awakening that am, I turned on the local radio station to get the weather. The broadcaster was hysterical, trying to describe what had occurred. I was delivering lumber in those days and went across 34 above Lyons to make a delivery two days after the flood, traffic was allowed down the canyon by then. Cars were eight inches thick, maybe ten. Boulders 6-8 feet in diameter were piled up with trees sticking out like toothpicks. Whole sections of asphalt, one and a half lanes wide by maybe 75′ long lifted whole and resettled elsewhere. Buildings that withstood the torrent were literally packed with debris, pouring out every door and window. There was a water pipe some 5 feet in diameter across the base of the canyon, 25 feet or so above the road. It was taken out by a house on the crest of the water exiting the canyon, and washed a couple of miles east down Hwy 34. I’ll never forget Officer Purdey who went up the canyon, knowing what was coming down, to warn as many people as possible. He didn’t survive.