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<br />. <br /> <br />Descriptions of selected floods are given to illustrate flood <br /> <br /> <br />characteristics. Most of the historical flood narrative is taken from <br /> <br />USGS Water Supply Paper 997 "Floods in Colorado" by Follansbee and <br /> <br /> <br />Sawyer, 1948. <br /> <br />FlDod of June 1864. An extra heavy snowpack augmented by a <br /> <br />rainstorm on 9 June 1864 resulted in flooding on the Cache la Poudre <br /> <br /> <br />River. <br /> <br />Historian Ansel Watrous wrote of the 1864 flood: <br /> <br />"Fort Collins . . . owes its origin and first place on the map to <br /> <br />the intervention of a flood in the Cache la Poudre River. This flood <br /> <br /> <br />occurred on the last days of May and first days of June 1864 and is <br /> <br /> <br />said to have been the worst known by white men. The water . <br /> <br /> <br />inundated the valley from bluff to bluff with a torrent that carried <br /> <br /> <br />everything not firmly attached to the soil with it. <br /> <br />"It carried Dut the toll bridge at Laporte at a time when the move- <br /> <br /> <br />ment of emigration westward was the heaviest and more than 200 emi- <br /> <br /> <br />grants were stalled on the bluffs sDuth of Laporte . . . On the 9th of <br /> <br /> <br />June, an extraordinary rainstorm set in on the watershed Df the upper <br /> <br /> <br />part of the river, melted the snow in the higher altitudes and an <br /> <br /> <br />enormous vDlume of water laden with driftwood, poured into the already <br /> <br />swollen channel, and the sullen roar of the rushing stream as it burst <br /> <br /> <br />out of the canyon was heard for a long distance. On reaching the <br /> <br /> <br />plains, the water spread out and suhmerged the bottom lands from bluff <br /> <br /> <br />to bluff to a depth of several feet. The storm occurred in the after- <br /> <br /> <br />noon and the raging torrent. . . swept down through the soldiers' camp <br /> <br /> <br />(at Laporte) in the night almost without warning . . . the campgrounds <br /> <br /> <br />were completely submerged and only the roofs of the cabins . . . were <br /> <br /> <br />visible. . . Fortunately, no lives were lost, but there were several <br /> <br />narrow escapes by the settlers on the bottom lands." <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />17 <br />