Colorado Floods 2013

For the time being, this lens will be my journal to document events and emotions in prose, poetry and photos following the historic and catastrophic Colorado floods of 2013. Unlike some of the other tragedies that I have written about, this is one that impacts my home, my business and my community.

My husband took this photo of the National Guard and Colo. Dept. of Transportation doing repair work on Hwy 36 by Stone Mountain Lodge, Lyons, on September 25, 2013. At the center left, the road has been washed away by the ravages of the flood swollen river that occurred between September 11 and September 14, 2013.

a poem

Polite men in boots and army cloth

Diligently fix the road that falls off in cliffs

To the wide muddy swollen creek

Severed gas lines peak from beneath

Chunks of asphalt

Fallen power poles, trees and mud

Configure into islands and dams

Just look thru the untouched lodge entrance

And see there is the American flag

With no one but the guardsmen and the officials

To honor it

Behind the cinder block wall the ducks

wait patiently at the pond for food

and friendship from whomever comes

whlle the river rages in September

like it only does in June

This is the way it is

and the way it will be

until the work is done

and the people who have homes

can go home

and the people who lost homes

can go see what's left

Anguish in the town in the first days

Muck, debris, scree, mind in a haze

A house was there well planned

The wide river reclaimed the land

Torrents in their eddies spin

To spit out the mud and rocks within

Tree trunks and cars and roofs and pipe

Reconfigure this eerie river scape

Don't let this greyness have you caught

Believing your lives have been for naught

this list is just started. I'll be adding more links

Since this flood that cost so many lives, US Hwy 34 through the Big Thompson Canyon was re-engineered and rebuilt. Unfortunately the floods of September 2013 have rendered 85% of this road impassable.