VALLECITO – Jean Earp slept only four hours between Saturday and Tuesday, working practically around the clock to divert torrents of water from the neighborhoods lining Vallecito Creek as it rose to 6,980 cubic feet per second.
Earp, a resident of Vallecito and an employee of McCarty excavation, had been preparing in anticipation of the floods with his excavator and front-end loader, trying to strengthen levees and fortify riverbanks.
On Saturday, the rains came hard and waters rose fast, he said. The river jumped the banks, turning roads and front yards into torrents as it flooded through the community.
About 390 homes were evacuated, and two houses on the banks of Vallecito Creek had to be destroyed by crews before they fell into the river, where they could damage bridges and cause dangerous blockages. Both homes were destroyed with their owners’ consent, said Upper Pine River Fire Protection District firefighter Logan Mosher.
On Saturday, while waiting for La Plata County Sheriff’s Office deputies to arrive with their high-water rescue vehicles, Earp helped residents escape by loading them into the bucket of his front-end loader and driving them to safety.
“Once the sheriff got here, people liked riding in the cab more,” Earp said on Tuesday while working to fortify a levee on West Vallecito Creek Road, preparing for the potential of another round of flooding.
The river had carved a new channel around a foot bridge after a log jam had diverted its course.
“Without 10,000 trees jamming everything up, the water would’ve flowed along its regular path,” Earp said, shaking his head. “We’re making up for lost ground.”
Earp was one of many over the weekend who stepped up to defend houses and evacuate residents to safe ground, including personnel from the Upper Pine River Fire Protection District, the Red Cross and the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office, Search and Rescue, Road and Bridge and public health departments.
On Monday, Gov. Jared Polis declared the flooding and ensuing evacuations to be a natural disaster, which helped quickly mobilize mutual aid from state agencies.
By Tuesday, the flooding had mostly subsided. But in the wake of the storms, about 90 homes in Vallecito had been damaged, along with roads and bridges, according to a Monday news release from La Plata County.
But that was not all, Mosher said. The Vallecito, Grimes and Los Pinos creeks had eaten away at their banks, creating undercuts that appeared stable, but would collapse under a person’s weight, plunging them into the water. And, he said, many trees in the area had become prone to falling over, even without wind.
“The danger is not past,” Mosher said. “We still have super-unstable conditions, especially around any moving water. The shoreline is super waterlogged, super loose. We have trees that are still falling regularly, even without high wind.”
What’s more, he said, is that as residents return and utility companies begin turning propane and electricity back on, there is a risk of electrical fires and propane explosions.
“With power coming back on, utilities coming back on, gas coming back on, we have huge risks for structure fires in these residences when (residents) come back and try to turn on (their) utilities,” he said.
At a Monday night meeting at the Bayfield Intermediary School, Upper Pine Fire Chief Bruce Evans advised evacuees to be extra cautious as they return to their properties.
“We shut off a lot of peoples’ power and propane,” he said. “When we turn it back on, stay in the house for a significant amount of time, have a fire extinguisher on hand and if you see any smoke, call 911.”
Evans asked residents to coordinate with their utility providers and the authorities to ensure that propane is turned on correctly to avoid tank explosions.
Additionally, he said, residents should give stream banks a wide berth because they could be undercut. The odds of survival if someone fell into a river because an undercut collapses are low because of how fast the current would be moving.
“If you fall in, the only place we may be able to get you out is the strainer downstream,” Evans said.
A strainer is a stack of logs and debris horizontal to a river’s current that can trap a person in the current and cause them to drown. The Vallecito, Grimes and Los Pinos creeks were riddled with strainers after the storms caused hundreds of trees to fall and washed debris downstream.
Theresa Anselmo, director of La Plata County Health, said residents should anticipate having to get their drinking wells and septic systems tested for contamination. The floodwaters likely caused damage to both, and could have sent harmful bacteria into drinking water. Her department has been working alongside the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
“When you are returning and if you have a septic system, make sure you’re minimizing the water in that system,” she said. “Sewage could seep out of the system and into the groundwater.
CDPHE Director of Environmental Health and Protection Patrick Cummins said his agency is working to make sure public water and sewage plants were not damaged. Luckily, he said, those systems were spared, though technicians were still monitoring them closely.
“Either through good planning or good luck, none of the systems were impacted by the flooding,” he said.
According to a Tuesday news release from La Plata County, evacuation orders in Vallecito are expected to be lifted Thursday. However, the release said that beginning at 8 a.m. Wednesday, residents may be escorted to their homes by deputies for important needs, “such as medication access or other urgent issues.”
The release said the decision to lift evacuations relies on a number of factors: ensuring private roads are passable and safe, water and sewer are accessible, propane tanks are safe to turn on, and debris is managed correctly.
“Emergency responders and damage assessment teams from La Plata County and (UPRFD) need time to assess the safety of the area prior to lifting evacuations,” the release said.
The road to recovery in Vallecito will be long, officials said. Mosher said the cleanup of the community will be difficult, and complicated by the onset of winter.
“It’s going to be a rush, because we will likely have snow coming by the end of the month,” he said. “A lot of these people need to get into their homes and repair any of the damage from the flood before snow hits the ground. It’s going to be weeks until this place resembles what it used to a week ago.”
Mosher said the weekend was the busiest three days of his firefighting career. He said he had never seen the water in any of the three creeks rise that quickly.
“ (It was) super unique to have it here at my home district,” he said. “I’ve been working up here for three years and have never seen the water even close to this high.”
Earp agreed, recalling how quickly the water in Vallecito Creek rose as 5.2 inches of rain fell locally within a 2½-day period, according to the National Weather Service. By 12:30 p.m. Saturday, he said, the creek had risen to 6980 cubic feet per second from only a few hundred. For contrast, he said, the creek had merely been a trickle in August and September as the area was experiencing high fire danger and drought conditions.
sedmondson@durangoherald.com
