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I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I 1977 Newspaper accounts of the July 24, 1977 begin the inventory of the damages caused by the Sunday evening cloudburst. A Volkswagen owned by Emmett Zerr, Jr, teetered at the edge of the river of mud and boulders but was not washed away, A new fence he was building with posts sunk in cement and lumber stacked to complete the project was wiped out. Basements in the 2100 block of Bennett were filled with thick red mud, yards had as much as four feet of mud and rocks. Garage doors were smashed at one residence, a vehicle had washed and was half-submerged in mud at another. A 10 foot wall of mud moved down the mountain, filling yards, ruining landscaping, walls, basements. Charles Stoddard estimated the flow velocity at his home on Palmer Avenue at 10 mph (15 ft/sec) and stated the only thing that saved his entire house from being flooded by the tidal wave of the debris flow was the placement of sheets of 4x8 plywood in front of the sliding glass patio doors, which faced the mountain. As it was, he had heavy equipment removing mud and rocks from his property for a working week, with reseeding and planting necesssary, and a continuing clean-up for the rest of the summer, Using the figure of $30 per hour for grubbing and cleaning, in 1977 dollars, for five days that cost alone would be $1,200 for one piece of equipment, with more for trucks and other equipment. Water used to wash the mud and dust was another additional expense, for those who might be on water meters and not flat rate. People on out on Palmer Avenue had more clean-up but not at the magnitude Stoddards did. Two of the homes on Blake and Bennett from 21st Street to 23rd Streets, owned by Larry Schick and Tom Collinson, were feared might be structurally damaged. Further investigation showed only one home expected to be eligible for