# Colorado Experience: Big Thompson Flood

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgqW8vGeO9U

[00:00] 2016 marks the 40th anniversary of the Big Thompson flood of 1976, arguably the worst flash flood in Colorado history.
[00:09] The survivor stories remain a vivid example of the dangers that come with weather in Colorado.
[00:13] 144 people lost their lives, and remembering them and the lessons learned from the flood helped save lives when the canyon flooded again in 2013.
[00:22] And now Colorado experiences the Big Thompson flood.
[00:31] The Big Thompson flood in 1976 was a seminal event.
[00:34] It's the top 10 most lethal flood in the 20th century United States.
[00:38] It's hard to relate to in this day and time because of our early warning and widespread news coverage, but then there wasn't any of that.
[00:46] 15 minutes it happened that quick.
[00:47] It just bam that night so changed all of our lives.
[00:50] Nobody recognizes the force of water until they're caught in it.
[00:53] The Big Thompson flood was a night of panic, of terror.
[00:57] You had flood waters peak at 20 ft above.
[01:03] A normal level intense and sudden risk.
[01:06] And to make clear-headed choices about climb, get up, other people making choices.
[01:10] Well, I'll just wait this out the flood.
[01:12] Caught thousands of unprepared people.
[01:13] Tearing through the canyon, destroying houses and property and claiming the lives of 144 people.
[01:22] This program was funded by the History Colorado State Historical Fund.
[01:24] Supporting projects throughout the state to preserve, protect, and interpret Colorado's architectural and archaeological treasures.
[01:33] History Colorado State Historical Fund: create the future, honor the past.
[01:38] With support from the Denver Public Library, History Colorado, with additional funding and support from these fine organizations and viewers like you.
[01:46] Thank you.
[02:17] The Big Thompson River flows down from Rocky Mountain National Park through Big Thompson Canyon and comes out at Lovelin, Colorado.
[02:25] It's just one of the prettiest canyons in the state.
[02:28] It's one of our best kept secrets.
[02:32] The Amic West is so shaped by images of expectation and success that when a really significant calamity hits, there's just a great collision between what the West is supposed to be and what it has delivered.
[02:47] And to a large degree, totally was a beautiful natural setting.
[02:49] It turned murderous and treacherous and betrayed the dreams and the hopes and the expectations of the people who had placed their homes there.
[03:00] Has had a number of devastating flash floods in different parts of the state.
[03:03] There are estimates that from the Pueblo flood from anywhere from 75 to 1,500, um, and the fact is people simply weren't keeping good records in the Pueblo flood of 1921, so we don't know.
[03:15] But 144 is an unbearable number of people to...
[03:18] Lose their lives in terms of loss of life, the Big Thompson flood is the deadliest flood in Colorado's history.
[03:26] It's the top 10 most lethal flood in in the 20th century United States history.
[03:30] But it was a bad place to have that sort of a flood because of the narrowness of the canyon, the concentration of the waters from the two tributaries coming together, and the surge that you got on top of the fact that there are so many people there.
[03:48] The Weather Service talks about 50-year floods and 100-year floods and 500-year floods, and these are sort of actuarial numbers that allow the government and insurers to make some projections about the severity of flood damage and the frequency of those kinds of floods.
[04:01] The canyon hadn't experienced flood waters like the 1976 flood for the last 10,000 years, so since the end of the last ice age, nobody ever thought a flood of that magnitude would come down through.
[04:19] Here so many things went wrong in the 1976 Big Thompson flood.
[04:22] I hate to say it, it was a perfect storm.
[04:25] Human actions and decisions were shaping the Big Thompson Canyon for decades before the flood itself.
[04:31] The first road was built in 1904 by William A. Riley, a crude single lane dirt road gravel.
[04:36] It served early tourism for Estes Park region.
[04:39] When you have the Great Depression and New Deal, the National Industrial Recovery Act opens up all this federal funding for building new highways or renovating old ones.
[04:48] The highway department had constructed US Highway 34 through Big Thompson Canyon in a way that straightened out a lot of the curves that would have normally slowed down the flood waters as they came down the canyon.
[05:03] And so instead of paying attention to the mountain river, there's more attention paid to the mountain road, which leads to all sorts of hydrological impacts.
[05:10] They realigned the river in some 27 junctures throughout the canyon, turning Big Thompson into essentially a...
[05:20] Straight choot down onto the plains the Big Thompson Canyon experienced flooding 12 times before 1976.
[05:32] Including a substantial flood in the 1950s, however nothing more than a few bridges and the road were ever affected.
[05:37] Giving residents a false sense of security.
[05:40] Tourism had been growing in Colorado since the Second World War.
[05:44] And Colorado in the summertime was seeing more tourists than it ever had before.
[05:49] So much so that from the 1960s to 1970s, highway traffic on US34 quadruples.
[05:55] By 1964, you had 32 motels in the Big Thompson Canyon and Devil's Gulch, supplemented by campgrounds.
[06:03] You had at least one hotel or campground for every mile of road up the Big Thompson Canyon.
[06:09] In Colorado, we can enjoy beautiful weather times of great abundance, and at other times the weather can be extreme.
[06:16] The federal government, the Army Corps of Engineers, had recognized this.
[06:19] And the Corps of Engineers in 1971 issued a.
[06:21] Report warning that catastrophic floods were reasonably likely in Big Thompson Canyon.
[06:26] In fact, they predicted that a serious flood could happen once every 6 years.
[06:33] And they basically came to the recommendation that flood plane zoning needs to occur in the near future.
[06:38] And had given the recommendation that people need to be purchasing flood insurance because they're living on the waterfront.
[06:45] So many homeowners were confident that they were high enough above the river that they turned down the opportunity to buy flood insurance when they had it.
[06:55] The Big Thompson flood was a product of bad timing.
[06:58] Coming out of Vietnam, coming out of Watergate, 1976 was supposed to be the year where we began to pull it back together, both with the national Bicentennial and the Centennial of Colorado.
[07:14] On the weekend of July 31st through August 1st, 1976, you had the 100th anniversary of Colorado's statehood.
[07:20] You also had the 200th.
[07:22] Anniversary of United States nationhood.
[07:25] Some 4,000 people were camping or staying in lodges or hiking in the Big Thompson Canyon on July 31st, the day of the flood.
[07:36] The whole state was coming together to celebrate, and then instead of celebrating, we mourn.
[07:43] You got to remember, this is 40 years ago.
[07:45] We didn't have the early warning weather cast that we have today.
[07:51] None of the attention from the news media that we do today.
[07:54] When you look at weather history, there are certain aspects of technology that have really advanced our field, and one of them has been weather radar, which is microwaves being transmitted from an antenna.
[08:13] The first operational weather radar for the National Weather Service was installed out in Lyman in 1970.
[08:20] But the farther away you are from that radar, the more general the information.
[08:24] That it gives you, it's a long way from Lyman to Estus Park.
[08:26] The Lyman radar had been either if not malfunctioning, then then they had it turned to read too high or too low, or it was down for recalibration.
[08:41] The National Weather Service did issue a few statements, but many of those didn't reach the people that needed to hear them.
[08:48] The people in the canyon themselves.
[08:50] The fact that the flood hit at night, that it had a bunch of people who were just having a pleasant day, and no sirens, no signals.
[09:01] The only way that people learned about the potential of the flood was through word of mouth, but the word of the flood could not move faster than the flood waters itself in many cases.
[09:13] On July 31st, 1976, two fronts collided: a northern cold front and a warm front hit right over Big Thompson Canyon, and and it changed the weather pattern in a way that people didn't.
[09:24] Predict normally as in the summertime.
[09:27] Thunder has slid down the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, had out onto the plains basically.
[09:32] Had these clouds that were literally stationary from about 6:30 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.
[09:39] The rainfall was as much as 12 inches in 6 hours, with some areas approaching that in only 4 hours of time.
[09:50] So by the time it started coming down, it was picking up volume.
[09:53] And when it picked up volume, it picked up trees, it picked up houses, it picked up all these things.
[10:02] And it dammed up, then it would break loose, and that would cause more damage.
[10:07] Then it would break loose again.
[10:11] We knew there was a bad storm because it had thundered all day long.
[10:16] And we had a little dog that hated thunder, and uh, he was under our feet all day long.
[10:22] My daughter Tina had her ninth birthday.
[10:26] Best friend Teresa Graham, she called me up and asked if I could spend the night.
[10:30] And my mom said no, and I did the typical 9-year-old thing: "But why?" I said.
[10:35] "Because I said so."
[10:38] It was a good thing she did not go over there.
[10:43] Because she would have been probably with them in the car.
[10:49] I watched my wife and two girls get washed away.
[10:56] Their names were Teresa and Lisa.
[11:00] They were eight and four.
[11:02] And my mother also.
[11:06] I saw her.
[11:06] They lived two doors north of me.
[11:09] And Dad had been off on a rescue mission with the fire truck.
[11:12] It saved him from the flood.
[11:14] We're the only two survivors of our total families.
[11:18] We had built a house on the river, 75 or 80 feet from the river's edge.
[11:24] It was no different than any other July.
[11:27] Day except it started getting cloudy.
[11:28] Which was not unusual, and being accustomed to the water coming up just from snow melt didn't bother me at first.
[11:36] Until it started getting up close to the house.
[11:38] I'd never had it up that close, and that's when I sent my wife and the two daughters out to get in a car.
[11:46] I thought we would be able to drive out of there.
[11:49] I watched car and truck size boulders roll in the water in the channel, 'cause from up on the roof I had a very good view of the channel of the river.
[11:59] It was fairly dark.
[12:01] I was just so familiar with the surroundings that I knew where everything was.
[12:06] The smell was from the discharge propane when a propane tank is very bullant and water comes up under it, knocks it off its resting place.
[12:15] Most of them are 500 and 2,000 gallon propane tanks.
[12:21] I just remember the sounds and pressure of the big boulders and propane tanks rolling through the river, and the ground would shake a little bit even I.
[12:28] Could feel that through the roof on the house.
[12:30] Some of those big boulders that went by were as big as a house nearly.
[12:35] We had a phone call from our neighbor Alice Gford up by Waltonia.
[12:43] She said, Barb, get out now.
[12:50] Get your family out, tell all the neighbors and get them out.
[12:58] The Waltonia bridge is gone.
[12:59] And then she said the motel's gone too.
[13:04] And as we were going out the door, the electricity went off, which meant it hit the power plant, which is just a quarter of a mile.
[13:13] About 9:30, Mom and Dad came in.
[13:18] Mom got us up and so we need to get in the car.
[13:21] We got to go.
[13:23] We tried to get our dog out, Stubby.
[13:26] Never a growly dog, never a barky dog, but he was, he was.
[13:29] About back there growling at dad, he wouldn't come out.
[13:35] I kept hearing this noise, this horrible noise.
[13:41] Well, I grabbed Fern's flashlight and I went over to the side of her house and shined it out there.
[13:47] And I, I didn't tell anybody what I saw.
[13:50] But it was boards and water shooting on the other side of the wall of the river.
[13:55] And it was going really fast and furious.
[14:06] And I just thought, we got to get out of here.
[14:10] We got up on the highway and we, we spent the night there.
[14:17] It was dark, it was pitch black.
[14:21] I remember getting out of the car a couple of times.
[14:23] My dad's voice was what I heard.
[14:25] He was protecting me.
[14:28] Were screams of people the...
[14:30] River and the roaring of that river and the rocks grinding cars homes.
[14:38] You could smell the propane.
[14:41] We didn't sleep.
[14:43] If they hadn't warned us, we would have been right there in our house, and I don't know what we would have done.
[14:51] I was 22 years old, and I was dating a young girl there, and I was renting a house off of her dad.
[14:59] His name was Elely and Mary Lee, and Sandy was the girl.
[15:03] We were in her house watching television about 9:00, and we got a knock on the door, and it was fire chief's wife, and they suggested we go out to the river and get the pumps out of the river.
[15:13] The water was down about 3, 4 ft down there, and I started taking those bolts off, and when I got to the fourth bolt, which didn't take a lot of time, the water was lapping over the bridge.
[15:24] Had some chickens out by the river, so I ran out to the river to get him.
[15:26] Gave me these two birds to put on my arms.
[15:29] We were probably 20 ft from the river at.
[15:31] That time water was at my ankles and the water just came up so fast that it came up to my waist in a matter of just a couple seconds.
[15:40] We got rid of the birds.
[15:42] We were in about 3 ft probably at that time.
[15:45] I put my arms around him to get ready to lift him up on the shed and at that time the shed and the everything just gave loose and we started tumbling.
[15:51] And so I still had my left arm around Elely and I was throwing my right arm trying to get above water cuz we were just tumbling in the water and underwater and it was the strangest thing.
[16:03] My arm got caught in the fork of a tree and it stopped us.
[16:07] I mean almost jerk my arm out of the socket but it stopped us.
[16:12] So I was hanging in this tree.
[16:14] The water went over the top of us so we were trapped there under water and I knew that if I let go of him I could probably get out of that tree but I just wouldn't let go of him.
[16:25] Elely was uh 63, he was in pretty good health.
[16:27] I was in excellent health.
[16:29] I was you know a logger, young strapping, and that tree just.
[16:31] Uprooted and we started tumbling down.
[16:33] Stream again and I got my feet under me.
[16:36] And I had my arms around Elely and I just leaned back into the water.
[16:40] And I finally got a stop and the water was about chest level.
[16:45] Things were flying all around us.
[16:47] Well, we were sure we were going to die.
[16:50] And the camper just shot right by us, missed us by 2 feet.
[16:53] And Elely looked me in the eyes like this and he said, "I bet you wish you kept that camper on your truck now, don't you?"
[16:58] And I thought, wow, he's pretty calm.
[17:00] I'm just scared to death here.
[17:03] Up above us, Idle Wild Dam had kind of stuff had piled up on it.
[17:08] Trees, houses.
[17:11] Well, that broke loose and it sent a 19-foot wall of water coming at us.
[17:15] And when it hit us, it just bent me over double, but it didn't pull us away.
[17:21] I was seeing those stars again 'cause I was running out of oxygen.
[17:29] And Elely, well, that's when he died.
[17:31] He went limp in my arms, so I knew he'd either drowned or...
[17:34] Maybe a heart attack, I don't know, but I knew he was gone.
[17:36] The water just took us away at that time.
[17:38] It started tumbling.
[17:41] There was a 20ft telephone pole stuck into these three pine trees.
[17:47] And I hit the end of that telephone pole with my neck, and that's when I fractured my neck.
[17:51] But I was able to throw my arms around that telephone pole and hang there.
[17:55] I was hanging there, and then the water went over my head again.
[17:59] So I was trapped underwater again.
[18:02] My next memory is I'm over at the camper.
[18:05] I climbed up on the top of my camper in those trees, and I broke the windows out, and I pulled out three cushions about 2T by 5T.
[18:13] As I was sitting on that camper, propane tanks would shoot by, and they would sound like torpedoes, just hissing.
[18:17] Trees, cars, everything was going by.
[18:20] Things were crashing into the tree, and as the water started getting to the top of the camper, I took my cushions and I climbed up about 10 more feet.
[18:27] And then the water kept coming up.
[18:29] I went as high as I could go.
[18:31] I made a little nest with my cushions, and the water was coming up.
[18:35] And I was thinking, man, after all that going to get washed out of this tree.
[18:39] And all of a sudden the lightning flashed.
[18:40] And I looked up just in time to see it.
[18:42] There was a giant white wall.
[18:46] It was a house coming right at the trees.
[18:48] And I saw it just in time to throw those cushions over my head.
[18:54] And when it hit that tree, it was just like a bomb went off.
[19:00] It actually shot shards of glass and wood through those cushions and stuck into me.
[19:04] And I just got lacerated everywhere.
[19:07] I lost my shirt and my shoes.
[19:09] Like I had a tight belt on, it would probably lost my pants.
[19:12] And I got on top of a roof, just waited a couple more hours, and the water went down.
[19:17] It was so dark.
[19:18] I'd wait till the lightning would flash.
[19:20] And I thought, okay, I know where I'm at now.
[19:23] If I go this way, I have to hit their house.
[19:26] And the lightning flashed, and the house was gone.
[19:33] And here Mary and Sandy start.
[19:35] They walked up.
[19:35] They just walked right to us.
[19:38] When it happened, it picked their house up.
[19:40] And they didn't know it moved 'cause everything was going up and down.
[19:44] And it took their house down about 300 yards, the distance of a football field probably.
[19:48] Turned it and set it sideways on top of another house.
[19:53] But we managed to get a fire going on the hillside and got all of our friends and neighbors and stay there till the next morning.
[20:00] I had a fractured neck and, uh, just lacerations and bruises everywhere.
[20:07] But I made it out, you know, I made it out.
[20:12] All my mother's Lois Macargo, and she was 63 years old.
[20:20] She loved this Canyon.
[20:24] She'd always wanted to build a house.
[20:27] My father had passed not too long before that, and she had only lived there since January of 1976.
[20:36] It was a brand new house.
[20:36] We were told by people to the West.
[20:41] that they could see her in the
[20:44] house and it appeared she was frantic
[20:46] and then the wall of water hit and swept
[20:49] the house and contents and her with
[20:53] it I had a seven-year-old daughter a 3
[20:56] and 1/2-year-old son and then I had a
[20:59] brand new baby three and a half weeks
[21:01] old my in-laws had a beautiful A-frame
[21:04] cabin up the Big Thompson as we were
[21:07] eating dinner I remember the water
[21:10] rushed into the cabin Gary slams that
[21:13] door and he says grab the kids get a
[21:16] jacket on them we've got to go out the
[21:18] back door and get up the mountain side
[21:20] he said the river has already
[21:22] risen to to the base of the the cabins
[21:26] by that time the river had r 78 ft
[21:29] within just a few minutes the water had
[21:32] risen on the glass the the glass was
[21:35] from the floor clear up to the ceiling
[21:38] and the weight of the water broke that
[21:40] glass so now we're trying to move around
[21:43] in shards of glass and grabbing kids and
[21:46] trying to be able to get out that back
[21:48] door within a couple of minutes propane
[21:51] tanks were now inside of the cabin
[21:54] pushing up against the back door we
[21:56] could not get that door open we were
[21:58] absolutely prisoners within the
[22:01] house we went into the adjacent bedroom
[22:05] my ex took a piece of Driftwood off of
[22:08] one of the dressers and just took it and
[22:11] broke one of the windows open so the
[22:13] water was rising in inside of the cabin
[22:16] and going around the cabin now and I
[22:19] just looked at that little hole and I
[22:21] thought we're not going to make it out I
[22:22] had the diaper bag on on this arm uh my
[22:26] ex was holding the baby the 3 and 1/2
[22:29] week old baby and I just took my arm and
[22:31] I went like this and broke out the
[22:33] adjacent window and I looked down and I
[22:35] could see my arm was completely opened
[22:37] up I had almost completely cut my my arm
[22:42] off and blood was just spattering all
[22:44] over all the walls and this incredible
[22:47] piece came over me meanwhile that that
[22:50] water is rising had we gone out there we
[22:53] would have all all of us all five of us
[22:56] been washed down the river he did take a
[22:58] piece of cloth and made kind of a
[23:00] tourniquet so it kind of stopped the
[23:02] bleeding for just a little bit as I was
[23:04] just getting ready to walk out the door
[23:06] into the kitchen area and then up the
[23:09] stairs the refrigerator went right by me
[23:12] if I gone out there even a split second
[23:14] earlier it would have killed me it would
[23:16] have just crushed me propane tanks now
[23:18] we have trees inside of our house the
[23:20] water continued to rise and the Thunder
[23:24] and the lightning was so horrendous I
[23:27] can't even tell you how loud it was by
[23:30] that time we had lost all electricity
[23:32] available the light from the lightning
[23:34] so I looked up and I saw this 25- ft
[23:38] wall of water coming towards us the
[23:40] glass in the very top that was still
[23:43] intact I remember seeing that water hit
[23:46] that glass it was just like just an
[23:49] explosion little Aaron was running
[23:52] towards me I was trying to grab his hand
[23:58] when the roof just twisted and I
[24:02] remember the roof hitting my head and
[24:05] pushing me down into the water and for
[24:07] one Split Second that roof was on my
[24:10] head and then the next thing I knew I
[24:13] was laying over on the side of the
[24:15] mountain side my ex he had put the baby
[24:19] the 3 and 1/2 week old uh little Sean
[24:21] under his T-shirt thank goodness or for
[24:24] sure he would have been washed out of
[24:26] his arms there's houses going down that
[24:28] River we're seeing cars going down I
[24:30] must have hollered Gary or something and
[24:34] he came over to where I was and he said
[24:37] where's
[24:42] Aaron and I said you know he's gone when
[24:47] the roof fell the whole cabin collapsed
[24:50] and he was washed on down the on down
[24:54] the
[24:55] river we heard these cries mommy daddy
[24:59] and it was way Downstream He Walked on
[25:02] down and found Cindy the seven-year-old
[25:05] one of those huge great big old trees
[25:08] had fallen over into the river and as
[25:10] she was going down the river the hood of
[25:13] her jacket caught on one of the limbs
[25:15] Gary get get her jacket off of her
[25:18] pulled her out of the river and brought
[25:21] her back to where I was and he just
[25:24] prayed over all of us and I said just go
[25:27] up the hill tell as far and as fast as
[25:30] you can take the kids so as I'm laying
[25:33] there maybe an hour or something before
[25:36] I could even try to move I'd see still
[25:39] see cars going down with people in it it
[25:42] was a horrific
[25:47] time you've got Rocky Mountain National
[25:49] Park Rangers you've got someone trying
[25:51] to reach the National Weather surface
[25:53] you've got various forms of state and
[25:55] federal agencies who are going to play a
[25:57] part I got a call from the Sheriff's
[25:59] Office dispatch I was pretty naive about
[26:01] floods back then I didn't really grasp
[26:03] what was going on we drove up to what is
[26:06] called the dam store which is the last
[26:08] business there just before you get into
[26:10] the Narrows we saw a constant line of
[26:13] cars coming down Highway 34 right out of
[26:15] the Narrows and then pretty much all of
[26:18] a sudden the the traffic stopped the
[26:21] road had finally been breached higher up
[26:23] the crest came down and inundated the
[26:26] bridge and just rose right up nobody
[26:28] could get across we started to see
[26:31] propane tanks in the river and a lot of
[26:33] lumber and some things that really not
[26:35] good to see in a river and I stayed back
[26:39] at a bridge very near the Big Thompson
[26:41] school we stayed there all night one of
[26:43] my Vivid memories was feeling Highway 34
[26:47] vibrating I went down and touched my
[26:49] fingertips to the pavement it was it was
[26:51] vibr I thought it was an earthquake but
[26:53] what it was was Boulders in the river
[26:56] that were being pushed by the current
[26:58] just just grinding hitting one another
[27:00] and I turned my Spotlight into the river
[27:02] and saw these things rolling that's the
[27:04] first time I really really understood
[27:06] the power of a flooding River the river
[27:08] smelled like wet sawdust so many trees
[27:11] so many boards from houses just ground
[27:14] up it's like a rock tumbler and
[27:16] everything gets ground
[27:17] up when the flood waters receded the
[27:21] morning of August 1st 1976 you had $35.5
[27:25] Million worth of damage the flood
[27:27] destroyed destroyed 418 homes damaged
[27:30] another 138 dwellings it leveled 52
[27:33] businesses wrecked 438 Vehicles it even
[27:37] ripped the massive 550 ton Water
[27:40] Irrigation tube at the canyon entrance
[27:42] from there we're talking a whole lot of
[27:45] Destruction uh in the aftermath of the
[27:47] flood we were operating a hel base on
[27:50] the west side of town in a completely
[27:52] nondescript field so I got put on a
[27:55] helicopter and we managed to get this uh
[27:58] seed woman's body out of the
[28:01] river she was she was without any
[28:04] clothing whatsoever uh which I thought
[28:06] was really strange it was the water that
[28:09] ripped the clothes off and time and time
[28:11] again we saw bodies without clothes on
[28:13] because of that just the force of that
[28:15] water ripping the clothes off that was a
[28:18] that was a real eye opener we went down
[28:21] thinking that we were going to be
[28:23] escorting people out and this was not
[28:25] even remotely close to that
[28:28] this was a flood where if you went into
[28:30] the river you pretty much cashed in your
[28:35] chip I'm so thankful for all the
[28:39] emergency people for the patrolman
[28:42] driving into adverse situations you know
[28:46] the police department the fire
[28:48] department's going in the EMTs the First
[28:51] Responders and then there was one man um
[28:54] Butch that had EMT training he made it
[28:58] over to where I was he said i' I've seen
[29:01] healthier looking corpses than you I was
[29:05] completely white they took my entire
[29:08] family on the helicopter and then we
[29:10] went up to est's Park
[29:14] hospital my little 3 and 1 half-year-old
[29:17] little baby Sean he was in pretty bad
[29:20] shape as well and so they had him in the
[29:24] incubator the doctor that took care of
[29:27] my my son and he never sent a
[29:30] bill in at all he just said whatever I
[29:34] can do to help save this family and to
[29:37] make it a little bit
[29:41] easier the flood finally at 3 or 4:00 in
[29:45] the morning subsided so and I felt safe
[29:49] getting down off the roof of the house
[29:51] and went looking for my family and of
[29:53] course they were long gone were found
[29:55] several days later way down river
[29:59] the next morning when we started walking
[30:01] around and seeing things that there were
[30:04] fish you know fish laying out there
[30:09] everywhere and um and it had flattened
[30:12] all the beautiful wock bushes it was
[30:14] like you were were in a war
[30:18] zone and and
[30:20] the everything was tore up I mean trees
[30:24] was everywhere and and nothing looked
[30:28] nothing looked right the whole basement
[30:31] was full of mud and water and debris and
[30:41] the
[30:43] smell it's really
[30:48] bad and uh I can still smell that smell
[30:54] it's never left
[30:55] me it was so much
[30:58] waste
[30:59] water septic
[31:02] tanks propane tanks the smell was
[31:07] horrendous all of a sudden there's
[31:09] military helicopters there's flying all
[31:12] over the place neighbors were getting
[31:14] together and checking on each other see
[31:17] who was where and my best friend
[31:20] Teresa and her mother Beverly and Lisa
[31:23] and Bob and her grandma Clara and Leroy
[31:28] had not checked in yet and kept
[31:34] asking where my best friend
[31:37] was my wedding rings were in a a little
[31:42] Heart-Shaped Box cuz I always took them
[31:44] off when I was working on something and
[31:47] so I told the the people that had just
[31:51] come
[31:53] in over the mountain that next morning
[31:56] here they were to start digging
[31:58] everybody
[31:59] out and uh I said I don't care if you
[32:04] find anything but I want my wedding
[32:06] rings and they found them in that
[32:11] mess and they got us out on Sunday
[32:15] morning we went out in a little bubble
[32:21] helicopter the devastation was
[32:23] Indescribable when rescue crews came in
[32:26] after the flood uh they they found cars
[32:29] flipped up into the air uh and and
[32:32] carried miles Downstream buildings
[32:34] ripped off of their foundations a power
[32:36] station was completely destroyed all
[32:38] that were left were the turbin but the
[32:39] building around it had been completely
[32:42] carried away and they began finding
[32:44] bodies as well uh stripped of their
[32:47] clothing people hanging in trees 15 ft
[32:51] above the water it was a shattering and
[32:54] heartbreaking experience for the for the
[32:56] rescue teams who were going in and
[32:58] trying to find
[33:00] people when the flood happened your
[33:02] chances of survival depended on how you
[33:04] reacted immediately if you climbed up
[33:07] the side of the mountain if you went
[33:09] directly up away from the flood zone
[33:11] your chances of survival were fairly
[33:13] good if you tried to drive down the
[33:15] canyon your chances of survival were
[33:18] fairly low when they did the searches
[33:20] afterwards they had to examined every
[33:23] abandoned car they saw to see if there
[33:25] was somebody in it the first V I saw
[33:28] that was right next to the river and the
[33:30] thing was filled with gravel from door
[33:33] to door if there was a body in there it
[33:35] was completely buried with gravel but
[33:37] that's that's kind of what we're up
[33:39] against I had a big pine tree in our
[33:43] yard I had hugg my name and my wife's
[33:47] name and then two smaller signs for the
[33:51] daughters underneath it and my name was
[33:56] the only one left hanging all the other
[33:59] the other three were
[34:00] gone and this sign was uh probably 12 or
[34:05] 15 ft high on this big pine tree that
[34:08] was an indication to me that right there
[34:10] that everybody had perished except
[34:14] me one week later we did have a permit
[34:18] to go in over climber's Ranch which is
[34:21] basically just in a four-wheel drive and
[34:24] it took us a little while to get our
[34:25] bearings we weren't sure where we were
[34:27] nothing looked the same the actual place
[34:31] her mother's house was was swept clean
[34:33] with the exception of part of the roof
[34:35] was wrapped around a tree when we began
[34:38] to look under the
[34:40] roof we found boxes of Christmas tree
[34:44] ornaments that had survived they didn't
[34:47] appear to even have gotten wet but it's
[34:50] amazing because anybody who has those
[34:53] old Christmas tree ornaments they're so
[34:55] fragile but not a sign of a car a sign
[34:59] of the house other than the roof just as
[35:01] though someone came in with a very large
[35:04] broom and just swep it
[35:10] clean I have a grant she was one that
[35:13] was buried up to here and when they
[35:16] found her she was yelling and saying get
[35:20] me out of here they had to dig her out
[35:24] they said to her how did you survive she
[35:27] says for the first time in my life I
[35:29] kept my mouth
[35:30] shut it was she was so cute so cute and
[35:34] uh so we had a little humor in all of it
[35:39] and I was on the the missing list and my
[35:42] dad was looking at that board with my
[35:43] name that said missing on it I walked up
[35:47] behind him that was a good feeling
[35:51] [Music]
[35:59] the realization of what had happened was
[36:01] gradual over that night and for the next
[36:04] day I remember seeing him at the post
[36:07] office at one point and I went running
[36:10] up to him you know hey
[36:14] Bob and he couldn't look at me I didn't
[36:17] understand why then it took a good many
[36:19] years for me to realize she was still
[36:21] she was really gone because she's one of
[36:23] the five bodies that they never
[36:25] found her mom and her little sister who
[36:27] was three and her grandmother were all
[36:29] killed that
[36:31] night so her father and her grandfather
[36:33] were the only survivors of that
[36:38] family the last body or bodies were
[36:41] found maybe out between Lovin and the
[36:44] interstate uh that had been washed that
[36:46] far out we pretty much had the bulk of
[36:50] the body recoveries done I think within
[36:52] about the first week we were sifting
[36:55] through debris piles looking for a long
[36:57] time
[36:58] they were encouraging people to go to
[37:01] the morg start giving information
[37:05] regarding victims that people had heard
[37:08] nothing
[37:09] from as the days wore on we still had
[37:13] heard nothing it was two and a half
[37:15] weeks before they found her
[37:17] body and it was um svendale Guest Ranch
[37:22] which is about 5 miles from where her
[37:25] home was she was ID identified by dental
[37:30] records there was five people that was
[37:32] never found George
[37:35] mccardy Evelyn
[37:38] Kindred Teresa
[37:40] Graham Vernon
[37:42] noler and Michelle
[37:45] Rogers one of those was was one of my
[37:49] daughters the younger one was found the
[37:51] older one was not while I was walking
[37:54] around I stepped in some holes at the
[37:56] flooded taken out of and I think that's
[37:59] probably what happened to her she fell
[38:01] in one of those holes and then just got
[38:03] covered up by later on flood debris and
[38:08] well that's why she was never found my
[38:10] dad and
[38:11] I we uh looked through a couple of those
[38:15] reiles but he did every one of
[38:20] them it was weeks later before they ever
[38:25] found Aaron's body and
[38:28] he was he was such a beautiful
[38:33] child some accounts claim that 145
[38:36] people lost their lives others 144 and
[38:39] the difference was is that one person
[38:41] who was believed killed in the flood
[38:43] actually turned up alive and well in
[38:45] Oklahoma some 20 years after the flood
[38:47] had taken
[38:51] place Big Thompson flood was a shocking
[38:54] moment in what should have otherwise
[38:55] been a celebratory time you could just
[38:57] see a ripped shredded and geologically
[39:02] modified Canyon where rocks the size of
[39:06] cars had been tumbling down the river
[39:08] bottom the road had been in many parts
[39:11] of the canyon totally
[39:13] removed Governor Richard lamb
[39:15] established the Big Thompson recovery
[39:18] planning Council they had two questions
[39:20] that kind of garnered most their
[39:21] attention is us34 going to be rebuilt
[39:24] and if so where and then the second one
[39:27] is there're going to be flood plane
[39:28] zoning and if so how much the notion
[39:31] that US Highway 34 contributed to
[39:34] channelization and to flooding risk was
[39:37] was on the minds of of people but um
[39:41] under the federal Disaster Relief act of
[39:43] 1974 only the original route would be
[39:46] reimbursed 100% for the road and so if
[39:49] you are going to rebuild it it makes
[39:51] economic sense to rebuild in the same
[39:53] place
[39:56] [Music]
[39:57] then there's all the questions of
[39:59] compensation and anguished homeowners
[40:02] who are frustrated in every way and and
[40:04] whose lives have been disordered and who
[40:06] expect something to make up for their
[40:09] losses of property with some form of
[40:10] compensation so there's a lot of tension
[40:13] and difficulty in dealing with
[40:14] governmental officials and then there's
[40:16] also careful consideration of who should
[40:20] rebuild and who shouldn't the Colorado
[40:22] land use commission said that you know
[40:24] taking the recommendation from the Army
[40:26] Corp Engineers that this place needs to
[40:29] be
[40:30] zoned what they found is that under the
[40:32] flood plane laws you can make two
[40:35] designations you have a flood way Zone
[40:38] which is a higher risk Zone and under
[40:40] this any building that has been
[40:42] destroyed or has more than 50% of damage
[40:44] cannot be rebuilt under any
[40:46] circumstances and then you have a flood
[40:47] Fringe Zone which is a a lesser risk
[40:50] Zone theer County said if your house is
[40:53] more than 50%
[40:55] damage it has to go
[40:58] and if you don't do it
[41:02] now we won't be back to tear your house
[41:08] down you'll have to pay to get that
[41:13] done those poor people that were in that
[41:18] position had to have them tore down and
[41:21] a lot of people had them tore down then
[41:23] they couldn't build
[41:25] back they couldn't they could couldn't
[41:27] build it
[41:29] back my thinking has always been if you
[41:33] want to live on that River and take that
[41:36] chance because you love that River so
[41:41] much then why can't they do
[41:49] that some of them stood there in the
[41:51] canyon for as much as 20 years before
[41:56] they were either removed or restored
[41:59] there was lawsuits of course going on
[42:03] legal actions estate problems and this
[42:05] caused some great heartburn some great
[42:08] angst and true hostilities and anger
[42:12] that our systems had to weigh through
[42:17] and try to come up with a fair and
[42:19] Equitable approach to dealing with this
[42:21] where our cabin was located we were not
[42:24] not allowed to rebuild and there was
[42:27] only one maybe two cabins in the whole
[42:30] Canyon that had flood insurance at that
[42:32] time we just lost everything Chris we
[42:35] lost our car there was a lot lost that
[42:38] evening those things are so
[42:42] insignificant in
[42:46] comparison to your
[42:51] children but years went
[42:53] by
[42:55] and I could never forget her you know
[42:58] she was I always had dreams of her and
[43:01] for the longest time I hated this River
[43:04] hated it it took something from me I
[43:07] couldn't get
[43:08] back mom had had flowers for my birthday
[43:12] and I picked one of the Roses out and I
[43:14] headed for the river and I took a pedal
[43:18] one at a time off of that
[43:19] Rose and uh mom and dad were there and I
[43:23] said my
[43:25] goodbyes my mom
[43:28] started realizing that she too hadn't
[43:32] healed and a lot of other people didn't
[43:34] have time after that flood so we started
[43:37] having the memorial Services every year
[43:39] we saw how important it was to the
[43:42] people that we never let that be
[43:45] forgotten we have a memorial service
[43:48] every year on July 31st no matter the
[43:52] day at 7:00 at the memorial site it
[43:55] takes a long long time to come to G
[43:59] grips with the the magnitude of it it's
[44:02] a hard thing to describe unless you been
[44:05] through something like this I've never
[44:09] missed any of those memorials we've gone
[44:11] to them every year they have them kind
[44:13] of comforting to me I guess to see as
[44:15] many of them as more than I thought
[44:18] survived the
[44:19] flood the main purpose of of doing that
[44:23] every year is that we don't forget the
[44:26] memory of all those that lost their
[44:29] lives that
[44:31] night if you have a
[44:36] catastrophy and you
[44:38] don't take lessons from it then it's an
[44:41] even worse catastrophe it changed the
[44:44] way that we thought about flood warning
[44:46] and predicting weather systems after the
[44:48] Big Thompson flood the National Weather
[44:49] Service created many more rain
[44:51] monitoring stations in the Rocky
[44:53] Mountains the Colorado Department of
[44:55] Highways began putting in warning signs
[44:58] instructing people what to do in the
[45:00] event of a flash flood to tell people to
[45:02] climb to High Ground the government
[45:04] became much more particular about where
[45:06] homeowners could actually build we
[45:08] learned that certain meteorological
[45:11] conditions which occurred that day from
[45:14] that a whole new field of of flood
[45:17] meteorology sort of emerged of what are
[45:20] now called Flood Warning Systems or
[45:23] alert systems where there's automated
[45:25] rain gauges in different parts of the
[45:27] Front Range of Colorado that's when they
[45:30] started to learn reverse 911 systems to
[45:33] at least call home phone numbers and now
[45:36] of course that happens on our cell
[45:38] phones which is why a lot of us get
[45:40] flood messages on a regular basis Big
[45:43] Thompson Canyon 76 was hard to forget
[45:45] our protocols did change immediately and
[45:47] they stayed changed through all those
[45:50] years without the Customs operations
[45:53] assumptions precautions that came into
[45:57] play because of the Big Thompson flood
[45:59] well who knows how many would have died
[46:01] in
[46:11] 2013 how could you possibly go through
[46:14] two floods in that time in 40 years all
[46:18] the things that were learned in and in
[46:21] the Years following the 76 flood got to
[46:24] be put to use with the 2013 flood there
[46:28] were definitely much more aggressive
[46:31] warning with information being delivered
[46:33] to people both by landline phones cell
[46:38] phone Communications and in fact
[46:40] emergency managers driving ahead of the
[46:43] floods into the most sensitive areas and
[46:46] telling people to get out the 2013 flood
[46:49] was different in that it was raining not
[46:52] so intensely but over a much bigger area
[46:55] and it took a long time and particularly
[46:58] when a new road was engineered and and
[47:02] built that looked like it should
[47:04] withstand whatever nature could throw at
[47:06] it and then to see it all ripped apart
[47:10] again within less than 40 years you're
[47:13] like w how could this be having no clue
[47:16] uh that it would come in that heavy or
[47:19] that extended and that long but we we
[47:22] started doing the protocols that we
[47:23] learned in 76 that night that helped
[47:26] measurably but we had time in 2013 to
[47:30] see what was coming and we appreciated
[47:32] what was coming and we had time to do uh
[47:35] measured rescues and to get people out
[47:38] of Harm's Way and to close roads down
[47:41] and to to disallow any traffic and
[47:43] people did listen this time when we had
[47:45] our 2013 flood they got phone calls it
[47:50] was it was a whole different
[47:54] thing it rained for 3 days solid we had
[47:58] 21 in 22 in of rain
[48:02] here I feared this flood coming I didn't
[48:05] think it would happen in my lifetime I
[48:06] build an addition but I built it 5 and
[48:10] 1/2 ft off the ground and I built good
[48:14] strong foundation around it that was the
[48:16] part of the house that didn't get washed
[48:19] away I happened to move back in time to
[48:22] watch the 2013 flood from a totally
[48:25] different perspective
[48:27] and I stood and
[48:29] watched something I hadn't seen I had I
[48:32] I couldn't leave people wanted me to
[48:34] leave I knew I was safe I knew I could
[48:36] climb to Higher
[48:40] Ground but I had to see it all
[48:43] again this time through an adult
[48:48] size and I realize I couldn't have saved
[48:53] him and the flood in of September 2013
[48:58] just destroyed everything up there our
[49:00] houses are still there they were just
[49:02] gutted and destroyed all of our hard
[49:05] work for all those years just going down
[49:07] the river it was pretty obvious when I
[49:09] got into the EOC that morning that it
[49:11] was worse worse than Big Thompson
[49:13] because of the the area involved and the
[49:16] destruction up into Estus and all the
[49:18] way down Highway 7 what wasn't worse by
[49:22] any stretch of the imagination was the
[49:24] death toll but fewer lives were lost4 44
[49:27] in 1976 and and 10 in 2013 in our Canyon
[49:32] in the Big Thompson we lost two people
[49:35] and they were right over here in Cedar
[49:39] [Music]
[49:41] Cove in the Big Thompson Canyon during
[49:44] the 2013 floods you have 17 of the 25
[49:47] miles of US Highway 34 disintegrated for
[49:50] the price tag of $80 million you have
[49:52] hundreds of homes that are again
[49:54] destroyed the State Historical fun
[49:56] worked very diligently with property
[49:58] owners after the 2013 flood there were
[50:00] some historical buildings that were
[50:03] right on the verge of being lost history
[50:05] Colorado and local preservationists
[50:08] worked diligently to save as many
[50:10] historic buildings as possible in the
[50:12] canyon and
[50:14] Beyond history Colorado's preservation
[50:16] staff coordinated with many of the towns
[50:19] conducting surveys and determining which
[50:21] buildings were of historic importance
[50:24] then along with Colorado preservation
[50:26] Inc the State Historical fund
[50:28] collaborated to help those most affected
[50:30] by granting funds helping owners save
[50:32] their
[50:33] properties little church in the Pines
[50:36] originally built in 1902 was severely
[50:39] damaged in the 2013 flood and its
[50:41] preservation serves as a lasting example
[50:44] of these efforts as a result of the
[50:46] flood action plans are now in place
[50:49] ready to save buildings the next time
[50:51] disaster
[50:52] strikes more and more people are
[50:54] building and improving in flood zones
[50:57] that means that the property damage in
[50:58] 2013 was higher by far than the property
[51:01] damage in 1976 and only 35 million in 76
[51:05] and 80 million or so in
[51:08] 2013 it's worth remembering the flood
[51:11] not only to honor the people who died
[51:13] during the Deluge but also the kind of
[51:16] warning that the flood provides that
[51:19] there are vulnerabilities to people with
[51:23] flooding all along Front Range Community
[51:28] learning that certain landar patterns
[51:30] come with certain vulnerabilities can
[51:32] help people prepare in the future it
[51:35] would be nice to say that after the Big
[51:38] Thompson flood of 1976 that we learned
[51:40] our lesson that we never made the
[51:42] mistake of building in a way that would
[51:45] allow nature to destroy lives and
[51:47] property again we have so many more
[51:50] tools today than we did in 76 to really
[51:54] read what the situation
[51:56] uh is and and how to react to it and how
[51:59] to warn people now there are literally
[52:02] five radar who give us much better
[52:05] overall coverage so much better than
[52:07] what we had in 76 we have multiple
[52:10] people with cell phones which is huge
[52:14] and texting and social media and on and
[52:17] on and on we've got the warning
[52:19] capability of reverse 911 the emergency
[52:22] phone notification systems yeah the fact
[52:25] of the matter is that Colorado our
[52:27] weather beautiful as it is most of the
[52:29] time can throw some really nasty stuff
[52:32] at us and often even with improved
[52:36] warnings it may still be a very short
[52:38] warning so the best warning you may get
[52:40] is from your own eyes your own senses
[52:43] your own knowledge of the situation so
[52:47] you just have to be on the
[52:50] lookout Nature's pretty horrific
[52:53] sometimes you know hurricanes tornadoes
[52:56] and people try to build back I had to
[52:58] file bankruptcy we don't have any income
[53:00] now because it all washed
[53:02] away then people ask me why I smile
[53:05] you're two floods why are you still here
[53:07] you know but it's home we've been there
[53:10] 40 years and uh five generations in that
[53:14] on that property up there two floods and
[53:17] I you couldn't put me anywhere else you
[53:19] know I I don't want it it's home Big
[53:21] Thompson flood of 1976 was a very
[53:23] significant event in Colorado History it
[53:26] it was a a a late 20th century reminder
[53:28] of the power of nature the the power of
[53:31] that River and the destruction it's
[53:33] seared into the memory of almost all
[53:35] residents especially in lmer County Town
[53:38] of lovin for Collins AES Park what used
[53:41] to be Drake if we hadn't lost any people
[53:45] at all it would have just been a
[53:49] flood I want to make sure that those
[53:52] people are not
[53:54] forgotten we've all moved on in our own
[53:58] different ways but we don't ever want to
[54:00] forget one of those lives that were lost
[54:02] that
[54:04] night every day I think about Aaron and
[54:07] I treasure every minute and every memory
[54:10] that I have of
[54:12] Aaron we have found from our historical
[54:15] records that we get a storm like that
[54:18] somewhere up and down the Front Range
[54:21] about once in 10 years it's important to
[54:25] remember 7 6 and 2013 in Big Thompson
[54:29] Canyon because not only could it happen
[54:32] again but you need to pass that on and
[54:35] you need to tell friends and Neighbors
[54:36] about what happened 20 years from now if
[54:39] it's raining really hard that
[54:40] day there's a body of knowledge which
[54:43] will help people in the future seems to
[54:46] some of us like really only yesterday
[54:49] and then we think of all the things that
[54:51] have changed the transportation
[54:53] Communications population so much of
[54:56] color colado is different and yet the
[54:58] mountains are the same I no longer hate
[55:01] the river I have
[55:03] learned to respect
[55:05] it to understand
[55:07] it and um I still see the beauty in
[55:11] it it's still
[55:13] peaceful it was a disaster it's nothing
[55:16] we had control over nothing I could have
[55:20] [Music]
[55:23] changed in that 76 flood I would just
[55:26] hanging on for life that's what we do
[55:28] here sometimes we just hang on hang on
[55:30] for life just hang on long enough to
[55:33] keep going I just realized that you know
[55:35] you can die in a second you can be gone
[55:38] so why don't you just kick back look at
[55:41] your life and think okay what's
[55:42] important because you don't might not
[55:45] get a chance if you don't do what you
[55:47] want to do
[55:52] [Music]