FLOOD07416

• County: Statewide
• Basin: Statewide
• Title: A Review of the 1997 Colorado Flood Disaster
• Date: 1/1/1998
• Prepared For: State of Colorado
• Prepared By: Colorado Office of Emergency Management
• Floodplain - Doc Type: Flood Documentation Report

LESSONS of RECOVERY - A REViEW of TltE 1997 COlORAdo Flood DisASTER

With the assistance of local engineering consulting firms, eight projects were eventually selected and submitted
to the FEMA regional office in Denver. As of this report date, three projects have been approved by FEMA:

1. Fort Collins Residential Floodproofinq Proiect
FEMA Share: $150,000

Estimated Project Cost:
Local Share:

2. Fort Collins Warninq Svstem Proiect
FEMA Share: $250,000

Estimated Project Cost:
Local Share:

3. Sterlinq/Loqan County Pawnee Overflow Proiect
FEMA Share: $815,000
State Share: $1,100,00

Estimated Project Cost:
Local Share:

$200,000
$50,000

$333,333
$83,333

$2,865,000
$950,000

Two of the other projects were withdrawn when they did not meet FEMA benefit-cost criteria, but the Colorado
Department of Local Affairs arranged for supplemental funding by other means to allow the projects to go
through:

1.

Weldona Flood Protection Proiect
Local Share: $350,000

Estimated Project Cost:
State Share: (CDBG Funds)

2.

West Vine Basin Proiect
Local Share: $377,000

Estimated Project Cost:
State Share: (CDBG Funds)

3. Pueblo Warninq Proiect Estimated Project Cost:
State Share: $25,000 (Disaster Preparedness Improvement Grant Funds)

$600,000
$250,000

$727,000
$350,000

$25,000

A stormwater improvement project for Canon City was declined by FEMA and the City's first appeal of the
decision was also denied. FEMA approval of another project at the Town of Wiley was suspended pending a
decision by the Colorado Department of Transportation concerning a COOT bridge that could be effected by
the project.

CSU Recovery and Mitigation Activities

By the one-year anniversary of the flood, repairs to most of the flood-damaged buildings at Colorado State
University were completed and repairs to two of the hardest-hit buildings -- the lower level of the Lory .
Student Center and the basement of Morgan Library -- were scheduled for completion by the spring of
1999. It may take another year after that before efforts to salvage all of the library books are complete, Most of
the costs of repairs and replacement of building contents were covered by a $62 million insurance settlement I
negotiated by university officials. Since the flood, more than 500,000 books and journals have been donated to
~Ii~~ I

CSU officials are undertaking measures -- berms, f1oodwalls, detention ponds and drainage improvements --
that will eventually make the entire Fort Collins campus safe from a 100-year flood and that will protect certain
critical facilities, such as the library and student center, from a 500-year event. By the two-year anniversary of
the 1997 flood, most of the flood mitigation measures are scheduled to be in place.

COlORAdo OFfiCE of EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

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