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<br />Flood of May 19<15. Runoff from the storm of 30 and 31 May 1935 caused major <br />flooding in the Bijou Creek Basin. An observer on East Bijou ,Creek at a point 3 miles west <br />of Deer Trail reported seeing a wall of water 10 or 15 feet high rushing toward him, The <br />business section of Byers was inundated by flooding on West Bijou Creek, and the Union <br />Pacific railroad bridge and embankment were washed out. The estimated peal" discharge <br />at the Wiggins gagin!l station was 280,000 c.t,s, <br /> <br />Flood of June H165. The unprecedented rainstorms of June 1965 caused major <br />flooding in the Bijou Creek basin, Heavy runoff caused extensive damage at the towns of <br />Deer Trail and Byers. In the rural areas, farms and ranches along the bottomland were <br />severely damaged. A boy was drowned as he was checking the livestock in one of the <br />outbuildings at his father's ranch along a Bijou Creek tributary. His father indicated that <br />the flood approached without warning shortly after the heavy rains began. These <br />floodwaters caused record flooding on the South Platte River which inflicted extensive <br />damage at Fort Morgan and to agricu~ural lands along the river downstream to its <br />confluence with the North Platte River. The estimated peak discharge of this flood at the <br />Wiggins gaging station was 466,000 cubic feet per second. <br /> <br />4.3 KIOWA CREEK <br /> <br />Flood Historv. Fkxxls in the Kiowa Creek basin are caused by runoff from intense <br />thunderstorm rainfall. Knowledge of historical floods is limited to three major events. <br />These events are dis!:ussed below. <br /> <br />Flood of 21 May 1878. No precipitation or discharge estimates are available for this <br />flood. However. data. presented In the United States Geological Survey Water Supply <br />Paper No. 997, entiUed 'Floods in Colorado' indicates that a substantial flood did occur. <br />The above publication reprinted the following article taken from the Colorado Magazine of <br />July 1937: 'Amon~1 the unsolved mysteries In Colorado's history is the disappearance <br />of a standard gage Kansas PacifIC (now Union Pacific) locomotive in the quicksands of <br />Kiowa Creek on the night of May 21 , 1878. A sudden flood had destroyed the wooden <br />bridge that crossed tho usually dry channel a short time before a freight train was due, and <br />owing to the bridge being the low point of a sag in the roadbed and (to) the high speed of <br />the train, the engine and most of the cars plunged into a swirling torrent of water before <br />the engineer realized the situation, The engineer, fireman, and brakeman went down with <br />the engine, which search was completely buried. A few days later ... search was begun <br />for the missing engine. Long metallic rods were driven in the sands. In some places, pits <br />were started but soon abandoned because of the heavy underflow, and the location of the <br />. . . locomotive appeared hopeless when it was estimated the bedrock formation was <br />probably 50 feet below the channel of the Kiowa. (It never was recovered.)' <br /> <br />Colorado Flood <br />Hydrology Manual <br /> <br />4.4 <br /> <br />fR4FT <br />