Laserfiche WebLink
<br />4.1.13 CACHE LA POUDRE <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />Flood Historv. Annual peak flows on the Cache la Poudre River normally occur in the <br />period May through September, w~h about 70 percent occurring in June. AlIhough most <br />floods resull from intense rainfall in the basin, snowmellrunoff is a factor and the worst <br />potential flooding cond~ion is that of heavy rains at a time when snowmellrunoff is highest, <br />in Mayor June. Notable floods on the Cache la Poudre River in the study reach occurred <br />in 1844, 1864, 1884, 1891, 1904, 1923, and 1930. There were apparently three large <br />floods of comparable size in 1864, 1891, and 1904. All of these floods peaked near <br />21,000 cubic feet per second. The 1904 flood was probably the worst flood in terms of <br />dollar damages. <br /> <br />~ <br /> <br />Flood of 1844. AlIhough ~ is known that severe flooding occurred in the basin in 1844 <br />as a resull of heavy snow cover and intense rainfall, the area was so sparsely settled at <br />that time that no accurate record was made of the effects of the flooding in the lower <br />basin. One description of that flood was in a letter written by Antoine Janis, a French <br />trapper on the river near the present s~e of Laporte. He wrote "On the first day of June <br />1844, I stuck my stake on a claim in the valley. . . M. that time the streams were all very <br />high." <br /> <br />Flood of June 1864c An extra heavy snowpack augmented by a rainstorm on 9 June <br />1864 resulled in further flooding on the Cache la Poudre River. Historian Ansel Watrous <br />wrote of the 1864 flood: <br />"Fort Collins..... owes ~s origin and first place on the map to the intervention of a flood <br />in the Cache la Poudre River. This flood occurred on the last days of May and first days <br />of June 1864, and is said to have been the worst known by white men. The water <br />inundated the valley from bluff to bluff w~h a torrent that carried everything not firmly <br />attached to the soil w~h ~." <br />"It carried out the toll bridge at Laporte at a time when the movement of emigration <br />westward stalled on the bluffs south of Laporte On the 9th of June, an extraordinary <br />rainstorm' set in on the watershed of the upper part of the river, melled the snow in the <br />higher all~udes and an enormous volume of water laden with driftwood, poured into the <br />already swollen channel, and the sullen roar of the rushing stream as ~ burst out of the <br />canyon was heard for a long distance. On reaching the plains, the water spread out and <br />submerged the bottom lands from bluff to bluff to a depth of several feet. The storm <br />occurred in the afternoon and the raging torrent . . . swept down through the soldie~s <br />camp (at Laporte) in the night almost without waming ... the campgrounds were completely <br />submerged and only the roofs of the cabins. . . were visible. . Fortunately, no lives were <br />lost, but there were several narrow escapes by the settlers on the bottom lands." <br /> <br />Flood of Mav 1876c The Greelev Tribune of 24 May 1876 reported the local river <br />bottom all under water from record rains. <br /> <br />Flood of June 1884. The Boyd farm northwest of Greeley was said to be entirely under <br />water for the first time from a combination of snowmellrunoff and rainfall. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />Colorado Flood <br />Hydrology Manual <br /> <br />4.19 <br /> <br />fFII'Fr <br />