The Great Flood of Lyons

I can't express how thankful I am for everyone who has been asking about us and praying for us this last week and a half. It has been one of the most stressful times of our lives, and yet we are blessed beyond measure to be safe and to be able to stay with our wonderful friends, the Montgomerys, as our town pulls itself back together.  Our house is fine. We are fine. We are anxious to go home as soon as possible.

So what happened?  The "500 year flood" hit Boulder County.  When I moved to CO, I had heard of the "100 year flood" potentially hitting Boulder at some point- and that it's time should be coming- but you still don't expect it.  Basically there's a 1 percent chance in any given year.  When I moved to Lyons, I even thought less of it. We live on a top of a hill in Lyons. I figured that we would be ok. I did not expect for the *entire* town to be evacuated because of lack of infrastructure. I did not expect to get an alert about my town on CNN.  There is no water, sewer, electric, or communications.  The river has actually changed course.  Hundreds of homes have been damaged or destroyed.  It's devastating.

Our timeline:

Monday September 9- I'm laying by the pool at the gym, soaking up the sun.  It is absolutely gorgeous. By afternoon the temperature dropped, I felt fall had arrived, and not long after it started to rain.

Tuesday September 10- Rain. Rain. Rain.

Wednesday September 11- Rain. It was a bad with Jackson and so I decided to not go to the grocery store since I could go the next day while he was at preschool.  That evening it developed into a torrential downpour. Would. Not. Stop. Over the course of 24 hours, 10-12 inches fell in Boulder County.

Thursday September 12- More downpours. Woke up to find that the sirens had gone off in the middle of the night and people had been evacuated to the Elementary school. I was told that the roads were shut down in all directions. Jonathan was coming home from Rifle, CO and he was insisting that he could find a way in.  During a break in the rain that AM, I videotaped some of the scenes from town- the river was crazy and had taken over the roads.  I heard a dam had broken above us which had made things worse. I was thankful to live on a top of a hill, on the other side of town from the river. Those of us on our side of town began bringing down supplies for everyone at the school. By the late afternoon, we didn't have water, so I began collecting rain water, but we had electricity.  I was praying that we would keep electricity. Jonathan was not allowed in, nor could he have made it-- the river completely covered the road into town.  I witnessed the National Guard enter town and saw their trucks struggling to get across.  I thought the only hope of Jonathan getting in was if he could catch a ride in on the truck since they were supposed to start taking people out the next day. I heard a report that the elementary school was probably going to lose power and so I knew that we would, too.  I called Jonathan at 1am right after we lost electricity with my phone dying. He told me where the generator was and then I was on my own.  Communications went down during the night with only limited cell service after that.

Friday September 13- I woke up to a whole new reality. I was by myself, in the dark, with 2 small children and 2 pets. My phone showed an alert from CNN that Lyons was being evacuated but I couldn't check for specifics or see most of my other messages, including from Jonathan. I set to work getting the generator working and was successful after an hour or so. Boy that thing was heavy and so loud once I got it going. I plugged our fridge and deep freezer into it, and felt pretty accomplished. I learned from our neighbors that there was a town meeting and headed down there. They basically told us that if we had food and water, to go back to our homes and come back the next day. A neighbor had a landline phone so I was able to call Jonathan and get more instructions as to where our landline phone was in the house and what to do if we needed to evacuate the next day. But he was beside himself not being able to be with us.  They wouldn't let him in on the trucks and even though the river had receded, leaving a lane, they wouldn't let him drive in. I went down on Friday afternoon and pleaded with an officer to allow him but the guy was a jerk-- letting his buddy leave and come back- and ignoring my request for help. I didn't give up though and I talked to a nice lady at the elementary school about it. They still didn't have supplies... and I knew my husband had a truck full of them to donate.  So she set me up with Officer Nick who heard my request and said he would make it happen.  It seemed to take forever for my husband to get to me-- but when we did, all of the neighbors cheered and I felt so happy.  I knew that we could deal with anything together!  

Saturday September 14- Another town meeting- this time to tell us to leave in an orderly fashion. There was no infrastructure, and although it wasn't "mandatory," they wouldn't help with any more supplies and needed us to leave. They gave no indication of when we could come back.  It was sunny and beautiful outside. Everyone was packing up on our street and aside from a cookout to get rid of frozen food, we started to pack as well. We also planned a steak dinner that night with our neighbors, Don and Nancy, and our friends, the Lohrs. At some point, Jonathan heard a rumor that another dam could be in jeopardy and he wanted to go ahead and evacuate but I knew that we weren't ready. It's a lot of work packing up for kids, pets, etc. Besides, i wanted our final dinner with our neighbors and I wasn't ready to leave!

Sunday Sept 15- We worked all morning and with some help, we were finally able to evacuate around noon. It was again pouring rain. We drove 2 trucks out with what we could pack, and headed toward Longmont.  We dropped off our cat, Kyla, with our friends the Christiansons, who live 3 houses down from our friends the Montgomerys, who had graciously offered to let us stay with them. We've been staying at their house for a week now and could be here awhile as our town gets fixed.

In the past week, we have been busy and yet rather disoriented with this whole change of events. Jonathan was able to get access again to town through impressing Officer Nick and other town leaders, and offering his skills and resources. After having a pass system to get in last week, they are now letting all residents in with our drivers licenses as of today.  But we still don't have any of the utilities- and so any trips in are mainly to check on things or to get things that we forgot.  We still don't have a clear answer as to when we can go back in to live.  I have heard that electricity will be back on soon-- but water and sewer will take awhile- esp. since the river has changed course and they have to decide what to do with that. In the mean time, we are trying to settle into our temporary home with our friends, and have things be as "normal" as possible, esp. for Jackson.  It's hard being displaced, and yet we know it could be soo much worse. We are thankful that God has provided for us in every way and that we are safe and together as a family.  We ask that you continue to pray for Lyons in the coming weeks and months and that you keep us in your thoughts. Thanks for your love and support!