Colorado has been drenched in rain causing massive deadly flooding. The area hit is the Boulder area, which the damage and destruction is massive.
Brighton Fire Rescue firefighter Clint Mader searches for a possible drowning victim during the heavy flooding on Sept. 12, 2013, in Boulder. (Jeremy Papasso / Daily Camera)
Saturday, Sept. 14: Largest U.S. airlift since Katrina
On Sept. 17, 2013, a rescue helicopter flies over Jamestown, which was hard hit by flood waters.
Sunday, Sept. 15: A final downpour -- and frustration
Boulder flood 2013: Facts
Deaths: 4
People unaccounted for: 0
Homes destroyed: 345
Homes damaged: 557
Commercial properties damaged: 33
Commercial properties destroyed: 3
Total properties assessed: 5,592
People evacuated by air: 1,102
People evacuated by road: 707
Miles of county roads damaged: Approximately 150
Cost to replace damaged county roads: $100 million to $150 million
Source: Boulder County Office of Emergency Management
Boulder flood 2013: Rain by day
Mon., Sept. 9: 0.25 inches
Tues, Sept. 10: 1.02 inches
Weds., Sept. 11: 1.92 inches
Thurs., Sept. 12: 9.08 inches
Fri., Sept. 13: 2.44 inches
Sat., Sept. 14: 0.01 inches
Sun., Sept. 15: 1.94 inches
Mon., Sept. 16: 0.49 inches
Eight-day total: 17.15 inches
Monday dawned as one more beautiful late-summer day. But clouds began to build over the foothills by midday.Late in the afternoon, the rain started coming down.
There was no way to know the region was in the first hours of what experts would ultimately call a 1,000-year rain and a 100-year flood.
A bridge collapse on a business access road at Highway 287 and Dillon Road in Lafayette causes three cars to fall in the creek on Sept. 1Saturday, Sept. 14: Largest U.S. airlift since Katrina
The weather broke Saturday. And while the day would turn out to be a big improvement over Friday, the chaos hadn't quite played itself out yet.
Sunday, Sept. 15: A final downpour -- and frustration
Sunday morning started out looking as foreboding as the six days preceding, with the city of Boulder again on a flash-flood watch extending to 6 p.m.
The rain returned by mid-morning Sunday, and soon it was coming down once again in sheets, grounding rescue helicopters and pushing area homeowners to the brink. Rain persisted well into the afternoon before it finally relented.
Long road to recovery
Long road to recovery
It would rain just a bit more Monday morning, bringing Boulder's precipitation total for the year so far to 30.14 inches, topping the city's record for an entire year, which had been 29.93 inches in 1995.
From Sept. 9 through Sept. 16, the storm dropped 17.15 inches of rain on Boulder.With the rain's end, the long road to recovery began. Miraculously, Boulder would learn that no one in the city limits was killed. In Longmont, too, no lives were lost.
"This is one for the record books," Glancy said. "There already has been discussion whether this was a 100- or 1,000-year event ... we know it is somewhere in excess of a 100-year flood."
Boulder County, battered and more than a little bruised, had withstood perhaps the greatest storm many of its residents will ever see -- the kind of storm they'd been warned of for decades.
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