From Halloween to floods (again!)

At 8:15 am mountain daylight savings time, on Halloween, Oct. 31, the power plant smoke-stack was just coming  into sunshine...remember how I started watching that as an indicator of the changing times? It was around an hour earlier at Autumn Equinox on Sept. 21st.

Yesterday: Durango School District and Fort Lewis College canceled all classes for Monday. And several residents were reportedly trapped or seeking to self-evacuate throughout low-lying areas, including Junction Creek Mobile Home Park northwest of Durango. (video to follow)

Yesterday was constant rain here in Durango, and unfortunately flooding in many areas nearby.

We are CLOSED until further notice.

(I had a book I'd ordered, but already decided to just stay home with all the rain yesterday.)

As of 2:00pm Sunday November 1: The La Plata County Sheriff is temporarily closing all County roads. Dangerous flood conditions and debris flows, all residents are asked to remain home until further notice. LPCAlerts will update when conditions change.

Please see https://www.lpcgov.org/alert_detail.php for important up to date alerts.

I didn't go out at all yesterday, and fortunately the church canceled the meeting I'd planned to attend in the afternoon. I think they canceled all activities Monday as well. This is wise because usually it's the next day after heavy rains that the waters from all the mountains come to the river here and brings it up high.

A flood warning was in effect until 4:15 p.m. Monday for much of Southwest Colorado. The warning extended to 7 p.m. Monday for Pagosa Springs.

National Weather Service Meteorologist Briana Bealo said areas above 11,000 in elevation in Southwest Colorado received 8 to 12 inches of rain Friday through Sunday afternoon.

“We originally thought we were going to be getting snow down to 9,000 or 10,000 feet, and a lot of that higher-elevation moisture was going to be snow and not runoff,” Bealo said. “Now, we’re seeing liquid precipitation up that high, and all of that’s becoming runoff and flowing into the rivers.”

Durango had received 1.5 inches of rain from Friday through Sunday afternoon, with another inch expected overnight.

SOURCE: Durango Herald

Late in the afternoon yesterday this funny little engine went north (going to right) up the track. Earlier I saw a tourist train did go by for a few hours, their abbreviated schedule since last weeks' track damage from floods. But they apparently change their schedule at this time of year anyway.

Railroad repairs last week after the heavy rains in Durango at the end of October

Several times this train would go past my apartment with only a caboose full of railroad workers probably, while the Silverton trips had been canceled due to track damage.

And last week a shortened tourist trip started again. I hope it at least went partway into the Animas River gorges...since the flatlands just north of town are where much of the flooding took place...and I hope that's certainly not what the tourists came to see!

Whoooo says we have to take down Samhain decorations right away? Do you take down your Christmas decorations the next day?

Yesterday of course, the daylight savings time was over, so we turned clocks back, and were tired by 9 pm as if we'd been awake for hours, which we probably were! It's only 7 pm and I'm already tired!

Junction Creek flooding. 

I live where the big marker is at Rotary Park in the middle of town, on the Animas River. Junction Creek comes in from the left (west) just a few blocks north of there. So the video above shows flooding near W. 2nd Avenue. that is not correctly marked as the yellow highway. That is actually Main Ave, or US 550. Go west from Main Ave one block to find W. 2nd Ave. parallel to it.

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The mind is the effect, not the cause. 

-Daniel Dennett, philosopher, writer, and professor (b. 28 Mar 1942)

1920 poster