Lessons Learned from the CO Flood

[sboza]

I always appreciate good, real world insight. The "what if's" certainly have a place in visualizing possible necessities in shtf scenarios but real life insight is IMHO much more valuable although always scenario specific.

I agree strongly with a highly concealable pistol/holster option with spare magazines. I would argue that someone with a long gun, even if doing so legally, would have to surrender that long gun and get a thorough patdown in a rescue event whereas someone with a concealed pistol would likely pass through without being put through the ringer. I hate the thought if losing long gun capability but that is all the more reason to be proficient with your pistol.

You and yours will be in my prayers. Stay safe (and dry) brother.

[skydivr]

My Cousin lives in Loveland and I've been up that road to Estes Park a few times...It's gonna be awhile it looks like before I do that again. Wonder how full Lake Loveland is now, it was way low last time I saw it...

[ST911]

Great post LSHD, chock full of lessons.

Natural disasters and emergency environmental conditions are far more likely scenarios than societal collapse, end of the world, and zombie nonsense.

[Eurodriver]

Second is people. Society has not crumbled, even with actual cities now underwater. We watched as Evans,Co slowly disappeared. No roving gangs have started raping and pillaging, and no reports of looting have come in yet. People started helping each other, wether it was rescue efforts or simply giving someone dry shelter, people are helping. This isn't to say that the looting won't happen, but it hasn't yet. I got listen to a group of inmates talk about the fun they could have in the empty trailer parks we were seeing on the news, so make no mistake that there is a criminal element out there somewhere that will prey on this. It comforts me to know that the majority of people will help you, and that a small minority can be dealt with using a 124gr JHP.

This is good news - but.

It appears you live in "somewhat" rural Colorado.

Different demographics than say...New Orleans, Louisiana; Hialeah, Florida; or Brownsville, Texas.

I just wanted to point that out to anyone (like me) who thinks all his EBT, 27 felony rap sheet neighbors are going to band together and help everyone out.

Stay safe.

[decodeddiesel]

My house seems safe for now, but my wife and I just spent the day putting together a bug-out and stocking up on some non-perishable groceries and water.

It's raining again. Steady, sustained rain. Unless you're from the West it's hard to understand how unusual this is for here. I grew up in New England where 5 straight days of hard rain was completely normal. In Colorado 5 straight days of hard rain is catastrophic. We just can't deal with it fast enough, the existing drainage infrastructure is completely insufficient.

[7.62WildBill]

LSHD, my thoughts and prayers go out to you, your family, friends, and neighbors. Be strong, because the hard part is yet to come. The clean-up and recovery will take months and years, but the place you knew will never be the same.

I went through eastern North Carolina's 500 year flood in 1999 after Hurricane Floyd. The ground was supersaturated from Tropical Storm Dennis after it had slowly rolled by, went to Virginia, and then turned back south and dumped on us again. My place was out in the country, about a mile from the Tar River near Greenville. Not wanting to risk getting our cars stuck, my buddy (housemate) and I drove our cars about 2 miles to a small hill near the highway and parked them. While walking in the steady rain down the long dirt road back to the house, a neighbor driving by stopped to see if we were OK. After telling him why we were walking, he laughed and drove on to his house. That was the last time he drove that car.

Floyd rolled in on Thursday afternoon. The wind blew pretty good that night and as the day began to break, it was clear that the dirt road was now impassable and that everyone without a boat was trapped. Just so happened, I had 4 or 5 small boats. They would prove to be very useful. Ever so slowly the water continued to rise. Around 8 a.m. it began to come over the slab on the first floor as we hurried to move valuables up to the second floor. By noon it was knee deep, and the downstairs toilet began back flowing shit out of the bowl. By Saturday it was about 5 feet deep downstairs. We had plenty of provisions, electricity, and satellite TV. We saw our house surrounded by water, shot from a helicopter on the major networks while were sitting in the living room!

Society did not unravel, but I did have to shoot a few snakes attempting to seek refuge. We (and other neighbors) went out in boats to check on each other, making sure that the older folks were OK. They predicted that the water would crest at 32 feet above the bank in our area. We dropped a tape measure down from the deck, did some quick calculations, and figured it would be waist deep on the second floor soon. As we prepared to evacuate, we hid the electronics (stereos, TVs, computer) in the attic. We paddled my big canoe with the dogs aboard to the edge of the flood waters, about 150 feet down hill from my truck. The tips of trees and bushes still visible we absolutely covered with insects, and we saw rafts of fire ants 3 feet across! We passed off the dogs to waiting family, then paddled back to load my jon boat with clothes, guns, school books (we were both in college) etc. A neighbor with a jet ski kindly towed the jon boat back to the truck. The water crested about six inches short of the second floor, and it took three weeks for the water to recede enough to drive back to the house.

Lessons I learned:
-Do not rely on anyone but yourself.
-People will pull together to help one another.
-FEMA will either screw you or grossly over compensate you (I got screwed).
-Cleaning up after a flood is simply awful. Some of my neighbors lost horses and cattle.
-Rebuilding is the hardest part. Find out what disaster assistance programs are available and file as early as you can.

Again LSHD, my thoughts and prayers to you and all your people.

[RogerinTPA]

Good luck and I'm glad you aren't in a major city thats flooded. Agreed: Always have a bug in and a bug out plan for sure. Timing is everything for bugging out, but in your case, the event being so rare, it's impossible to know the effects of that type of unexpected flood and weather pattern can do to you and the property, until you live through it. A flood would definitely cause me to re-evaluate the current living situation (moving to higher ground, not living near the path of potential flood flows, and not on 100 year flood plains).

[SteyrAUG]

Glad you are alright.

Completely agree on bugging out. Not sure where I could go on one tank of gas where I'd have a better chance of survival than in my home. It would take a LOT for me to "bug out" and that means everyone would be doing the same so might as well start walking.

Done a few hurricane seasons where we were "on our own" for a couple weeks. Handgun on the hip during daylight, slung a rifle at dusk. This was most for deterrence as there were quite a few "opportunists" out and about after a hurricane.

But more than guns the big three remain food, shelter and water. Most folks on my block were trying to figure out what to do after 5 days.

[kwelz]

My parents were just there last week for my Fathers units reunion. I am very glad they didn't stay longer like they had originally planned.

[Honu]

Glad you are OK

hope the 1200 they report missing are just hunkered down some where safe and loss is as little as can be !

I taught boarding at Breckenridge many years ago loved that area