After the recent assassination of 33-year-old Charlie Kirk in Orem, Utah, and two weeks later, the attempted assassination of a 6-year old boy in Grand Blanc, Michigan, among others injured and fatally wounded who share my faith, I found myself in a bit of a funk. I wondered about the contemporary, well-used slogan, “How do we make America great again?”
Enter the Vallecito Creek and Pine River drainages, October 2025, 100-year storm event. At its peak in Vallecito Creek, the rainstorm, driven by hurricanes off the California coast, produced flows hovering around 7,000 cubic feet per second. The combined peak flows entering Vallecito Reservoir from Vallecito Creek and the Pine River were around 11,000 cfs. Three times the flow of a typical spring runoff backed by hundreds of inches of annual snowfall accumulation.
The hydrologic forces produced by these flows are near incomprehensible. The aftermath of the storm raised the Vallecito Reservoir approximately 25 vertical feet in a few hours. The tonnage of debris and silt flushed into the reservoir can only be estimated, not accurately computed. The damage this flood-monster left in its wake is incalculable. More so, when one considers the lives and dreams of those whose homes and properties were damaged – some beyond recognition.
What happened before, during the storm, and will remain in motion for months and years ahead, speaks volumes about who we really are as a community and country.
Leadership in La Plata County, and unprecedented volunteer efforts, quickly mobilized. The battle cry moving into the storm was “no loss of human life and minimize property damage.” In a word – relief! No identification of one’s political affiliation was sought to qualify victims for varying degrees of relief. All were simply on equal footing, comprising the human family that makes up La Plata County in the United States of America.
Hundreds of people swung into action. They filled and placed sandbags around crucial road and bridge structures, and cleared the seemingly endless accumulation of debris away from water conveyance structures, the loss of which from erosion threatened human safe passage at critical transportation points.
They donated equipment, muscle and clarity of thought on the sequence of what needed to be done next to reach the goal of “no loss of human life and minimize property damage.” They made phone calls to check on the well-being of family, friends and strangers in the storm’s path.
They came from as far away as Virginia and points in between to share knowledge about dealing with and minimizing floodwater damage, drawing on lessons learned from past flooding events across the nation, with emphasis on the 2013 Colorado South Platte River flood. They logged long hours in a short period of time, preparing for, conducting, monitoring, and coordinating oversight work and meetings focused on beating back the ravaging water-monster and attaining the above goal’s objectives.
The Upper Pine Fire Protection District, La Plata County Sheriff’s Office, La Plata County Emergency Response Management, and their respective staffs and associates, turned in flawless efforts under the respective direction of Bruce Evans, Sean Smith and Shawna Lagarza. (I’ve been a horse sale auctioneer for over 35 years, and I’m unable to communicate with the speed and clarity of the farm- and ranch-raised Shawna.)
La Plata County Commissioners Marsha Porter-Norton, Matt Salka and Elizabeth Philbrick were frequently present, asking what they could do and where they could help. Rep. Jeff Hurd (with his young son Vincent in tow) toured the devastation and expressed similar sentiments. The list of the unnamed good Samaritans is longer than a Kansas well rope.
As touched on above, the Sheriff’s deputies, La Plata County Road and Bridge staff, and Upper Pine fire fighters were nothing short of top-flight, top-draw and top-shelf. The vast majority of those affected by the event were stoic and resilient. Perhaps saving their shattered, frayed emotions for private, unrevealed times.
Each time, while traveling as a passenger with Smith and others, I left the disaster site, with the funk that had beset me giving way to the realization that perhaps La Plata County, Colorado, isn’t that much different from the hundreds of other counties that span and dot the nation’s landscape from sea to shining sea.
Are there local and national human-interaction problems and polarizing differences that vie for our attention, correction and are directly responsible for the tragic deaths noted above? Of course. But, by design, these and other volatile social differences and obstacles have been with us since the infancy of our nation, and have been present since the dawning of recorded time.
From the passenger window, I’m reminded that when disaster strikes, we are tested – as a community and a country. In those moments, our collective greatness is revealed in the kindness, compassion and desire to be peacemakers that carry us through the ordinary days between the storms.
Perhaps the key here is a caution Shawna shared at one of our many briefing meetings that struck home for me: “ … Remember, words really do matter.”
May God bless us all with patience, understanding, virtue and love toward each other in the best and worst of times.
Ken Beck has served as superintendent of the Pine River Irrigation District since 2016. Previously, he had a 31-year career with the Bureau of Reclamation.
