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<br />At Littleton, the people in lower sections had been evacuated but the flood
<br />picked up countless house trailers, horse trailers, cars, homes, and businesses'
<br />properties. This debris probably swelled the flood crest at least double or
<br />more. For the next 4 to 5 hours the flood tumbled and roared, wiping out or
<br />covering up all of the floodplain areas from Littleton to the Fifteenth Street
<br />viaduct in west Denver where an estimated peak of 70,000 c,f,s. waS gaged.
<br />All of the highway bridges, railroad bridges, and most of the water, sewer,
<br />power and telephone utilities were torn out. Power shorts caused numerous
<br />fires that could not be fought, much less gotten to by men and equipment,
<br />
<br />While the flood devastation was descending on Metropolitan Denver, the adjacent
<br />stream to the east, Cherry Creek, was prevented from dumping about 58,000 c.f,s.
<br />or about 16,000 acre-feet into the Denver area by the Corps of Engineers' Cherry
<br />Creek flood control dam, Sand Creek, together with Tollgate Creek, produced
<br />a lot of damage through the north part of Aurora and Commerce City, but reached
<br />the South Platte and was dispersed downstream hours before the Plum Creek flood
<br />crest hit Denver.
<br />
<br />From Commerce City down river, the flood damages though high would have been
<br />of a decreasing nature except for the rains occurring on Thursday.
<br />
<br />Near Falcon on the South Platte-Arkansas Divide, 12+ inches of rain fell with
<br />the storm splitting and part moving northeast across the Kiowa and Bijou
<br />basins with maximum reported rainfalls ranging from 8 inches to 12 inches.
<br />The Kiowa Pilot Project with sixty flood~ater-retarding structures, reservoiring
<br />62 percent of the watershed areas, had thirty structures using the emergency
<br />spillways with 30,000 c.f.s. flow estimated at the Kiowa Highway bridge,
<br />Although watershed damages are estimated at $72,000, it is estimated that
<br />watershed damages would have been at least an additional $700,000 had the
<br />project not been applied. This is considerably less than the seven lives
<br />lost and $2,000,000 damages received in the 24-inch flood of 1935.
<br />
<br />The West Middle and East Bijou Creeks with estimated peaks of 70,000 c.f,s,
<br />on the 16th and 200,000 c.f,s. on the 18th at Wiggins, together with Beaver and
<br />Badger Creeks produced fantastic damages to the towns of Agate, Wiggins,
<br />Deertrail and Byers while taking out all of the county, state and federal
<br />roads and railroads on their march to join the flood crest on the South Platte
<br />River in the vicinity of Fort Morgan, Colorado on Friday, June 18th,
<br />
<br />About nOon on Friday, Fort Morgan and Brush, Colorado, were isolated except
<br />by air and water by flood crests 30 feet high and covering up to 3 miles in
<br />width and with an estimated peak flow of 100,000 c.f.s,
<br />
<br />Still :nundating the floodplain and the low lying areas, the flood passed
<br />Sterling, Crook, Ovid, and finally Julesburg, Colorado with a peak of
<br />37,000 c,f.s. early the morning of June 20th.
<br />
<br />Thus passed out of Colorado the most devastating flood in the history of the
<br />South Platte in Colorado. Total damages will not be knovn until later.
<br />One of the greatest surprises was the fantastically low loss of life from
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