It’s official. This rain has to stop.
It’s been at least seven days of rain. It could be even more than that… I’ve lost count, to be honest. During the time I’ve lived in Colorado, this season has been the rainiest I’ve ever seen.
We are notoriously dry, suffer from wildfires, and get the majority of our moisture during the winter season in the form of that pretty powdery white stuff.
I have never seen anything like what’s going on here now. The newscasters call it flooding of “biblical” proportion… and I can only hope that it’s the 100-year flood that they’re calling it, and not something that we’ll ever see in this lifetime.
Thursday night was the night when it all began to get real. I live about 20 minutes outside of Boulder, Colorado… so, when Boulder started to see flooding and massive destruction, I started to get nervous. That’s WAY too close for comfort.
News coverage showed everything in horrific detail. Waterways taking ownership of homes, canyons, roadways, with utter disregard for the lives in its paths. And worse, the rain continued on.
At around 11pm on Thursday night, I realized that the large development one street over was evacuated including hundreds of family who live just to the West of me.
Evacuations in my neighborhood? Worse, it was night time, and there was really no way to gauge what was going on.
What do you do when your town experiences a natural disaster? How do you stay in touch with the latest news? I quickly found my local police on Twitter and started following the Colorado Emergency notifications and local news. Very quickly, I began to get local information and knew where the dangers lied, and what roads had closed.
In the night, I actually packed an evacuation bag. Just in case I had to flee… that’s an experience I hope I never have to go through again. Although, it was quite interesting to look at what I needed to take with me, and truth be told: It wasn’t much.
Had I needed to evacuate that night, I didn’t really know where I was going to go. Not because I didn’t have places to go… but because of the uncertainty of being able to get to those places. There were so many road closures, it was just hard to say.
In the end, I woke up on Friday and saw a shiny, bright lightbulb in the sky that we hadn’t seen in days. It also gave me a chance to go out to see what was going on out there. And, apparently, I wasn’t the only one who had this idea… the new waterway that formed near my complex was like a tourist site with many people out there.
This wide “creek” didn’t exist a few days ago, but appeared in full force….
In a strange way, I thought it was beautiful.
For me, I am incredibly thankful to be as safe as I am. I am happy that the largest “existing” creek that I live next to has kept itself within its boundaries… growing significantly in size, but not impeding upon its neighbors.
I’ve continued to keep an eye on this new body of water. Walking out there once a day, eyeballing it as I drive past it… it seems to be staying put and not expanding, which is good.
I’ve also kept my eyes on the sky, like the rest of Colorado… Praying for the rain to stop.
I watch the clouds, I watch the news, and I keep my eye on social media… learning more and more about what my friends to the north are going through. I hope we’re nearing the end.
This week’s weather forecast shows a little more rain tonight, and then dryness for as far as the forecast projects.
I think Governor Hickenlooper said it best yesterday, when he was asked if Colorado would recover: “Yes! We’ve got broken roads & bridges, but we don’t have broken spirits.”
When the sun comes out today, it’s going to be time to rebuild… time to help the people of Colorado. I am eager to find that way that I can help. I know I am not an expert at water removal, but I can coordinate donation drives and cook a mean dinner. There’s got to be a way I can help, and I plan to find it.
For those of you who have means to donate to the people of Colorado, I encourage you to do so… we need it right now. Here are a few websites where donations can be made, as reported by the Denver Post.
And more than your donations, I ask for your prayers and positive thoughts for the people of this beautiful state. We need it more than ever…
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