FLOOD09445

• Designation Number: 53
• County: Larimer
• Community: Unincorporated Larimer County
• Stream Name: Cache La Poudre River
• Basin: South Platte
• Title: Floodplain Information Report - Cache La Poudre River, Colorado, Volume III
• Date: 10/1/1975
• Designation Date: 3/1/1976
• Floodplain - Doc Type: Floodplain Report/Masterplan

Below the mouth of Boxelder Creek floodwaters were reported
to be 1.5 mile wide in places. Every bridge between Fort Collins and
Greeley was destroyed. The flood reached Fort 001 lins late In the
afternoon qn 20 May and the crest arrived at Greeley about 8:30 a.m. on
21 May. Water backed up behind a culvert at the Union Pacific Railroad
track and overflowed a large area in the city. Lowlands downstream of
the railroad were also flooded with houses submerged to the windowsil Is.
Flooding continued unti I noon then receded rapidly.

June 1947 - Heavy rains, including 2.7 inches in 1.5 hours at
Windsor on 20 June, and melting snow once more caused the Cache la Poudre
River .0 overflow in the Greeley area. Damages were about evenly divided
between urban and rural areas. An estimated 200 inhabitants of 100 homes
in the flood plain were evacuated. A dike on north 9th Avenue broke early
on the 23rd resulting in floodinq of a residential area there. No bridges
were destroyed althouoh a number were closed to traffic during the flooding.
It was reported that ahout 170 acres were flooded in Greeley. Oamanes were
suffered to Irrigation structures upstream of Greeley.

June 1917 - Rain fal ling on a heavy snow blanket In the
mountains and supplemented by local rains in the lower portion of the
basin caused flooding on the lower Cache la Poudre River.

June 1923 - Snow cover in the basin was about 50 percent above
normal In the Spring of 1923 and June was one of the wettest of record.
The Fort Collins Express, 17 June 1923, in a dispatch from Greeley stated:

AUGust 1951 - A heavy r a i nstorm over the Rocky ~10unta i n foot-
hil Is on 3 August 1951, with nearly 12 inches measured near 8el Ivue,
Colorado in the Cache la Poudre River basin, caused severe flooding alonn
portions of that stream.

tourists from their campground in the bottoms.
farm northwest of here was entirely under water
time since 1884".

The Boyd
for the first

June 1%5 - Heavy to torrential rainfall over large portions
of the South Platte River basin with the Cache la Poudre River basin re-
ceivinn its greatest amounts on 14 and 15 June caused floodinn throunhout
the study reach. Flood damage at Greeley was esti~ated at $R5,000. Rural
di'lmaqes Wflre about $700,000 for the r:i'lche la Poudre Piver bi'lsin inclIJdinq
thfl study reach. The 0reeley Tribune of 17 June 1965 reDorted:

"High water on the Poudre second only to the flood of
1904, tonight shut off all travel on highways north and west
of the city and had driven a score of families from their
homes on the lowlands. . . Three feet of water has driven

May 1930 - Rains began in the basin about 3 p.m. on 30 May
and a .peak discharge of 6,800 cubic feet per second was reached at
Livermore on the North Fork Cache la Poudre River at 6 p.m. The flood
reached the canyon gage on the Cache la Poudre River at 8:15 p.m., with
an estimated discharge of 10,200 cubic feet per second. The flood reached
Fort Oolllns at about 10:00 p.m. and lasted approximately two hours. Most
of the damage occurred to highways, bridges, and irrigation structures
upstream.

"The r:"che I a P()urfre ~/as srrea~ i no out into the
lowl~nds north and east of Greeley. . . Pol ice were
forcerf to close the 6th Avenue oridna ~nrf the 5th Street

hrirfoe

At 5th Street water was spil lino out of the

banks to the east on the north side of the brldge."

7.4

23