Re: [ihc] flash floods

["ken.dunnington" <ken.dunnington@xxxxxxxxx>]

JMB>       JoelB  (When it rains hard here, cars float away.  Most of the time,
JMB> it just hardly rains)

Same here in north central Colorado.  Our avergae annual precip is
less than 14".  But on occasion...     I live in the area where the
rain fell on July 29, 1997.  I witnessed several cars float down my
street which was then a raging whitewater river.  They ended up either
underwater further down the street or in yards against trees and such.
I made out of that storm with only damage to my CJ5 which had been
parked in the street.  Six people lost their lives.  We had over 10
inches of rain in 4 hours in a relatively small area(a square mile or
so).  Funny part for me was the high water marker at the end of the
street which one can see scattered around town in the various
retention pond areas.  Ours was much higher than everyone elses, most
being 2-3 feet some up to 4.  Ours was 7 feet.  I thought that odd as
while driving on my street the 7 foot mark was at eye level.  I
assumed incorrectly that it must've been a marker for somewhere else
that just got put there for whatever reason.  The most I ever saw it
get up to was between the 2 and 3 foot mark.  The night of the flash
flood I saw the water hit 6.5 feet on that marker.

The odd thing with flash floods is that the serious damage does not
occur where it rains.  The folks that died and the houses that were
destroyed were in an area that received about 1 inch of rain.  It was
all the run-off from where I live converging into the normally small
Spring Creek that did the big stuff like derail a passing train that
was 20 feet above the normal creek bank.

Back to IH...

Ken