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. Flood History. Floods in the Bijou Creek basin have occurred as the result of runoff from high intensity rainfall over a relatively small portion of the drainage area. Records do not indicate any major flooding from snowmelt runoff. The two record flood events that have occurred in the basin are described in the following paragraphs. . Flood of May 1935. Runoff from the storm of 30 and 31 May 1935 caused major flooding in the Bijou Creek basin. An observer on East Bijou Creek at a point 3 miles west of Deer Trail reported seeing a wall of water 10 or 15 feet high rushing toward him. The business section of Byers was inundated by flooding on West Bijou Creek, and the Union Pacific railroad bridge and embankment were washed out. The estimated peak discharge at the Wiggins gaging station was 280,000 c.f.s. . Flood of June 1965. The unprecedented rainstorms of June 1965 caused major flooding in the Bijou Creek basin. Heavy runoff caused extensive damage at the towns of Deer Trail and Byers. In the rural areas, farms and ranches along the bottomland were severely damaged. A boy was drowned as he was checking the live- stock in one of the outbuildings at his father's ranch along a Bijou Creek tributary. His father indicated that the flood approached without warning shortly after the heavy rains began. These floodwaters caused record flooding on the South Platte River which inflicted extensive damage at Fort Morgan and to agricultural lands along the river downstream to its confluence with the North Platte River. The estimated peak discharge of this flood at the Wiggins gaging station was 466,000 cubic feet per second. . 53