From the Durango Herald - a newspaper which I subscribe to, but only find articles on FaceBook. Need to figure out how to get the whole paper.
As the sun peeks through the clouds after a series of rainstorms, Southwest Colorado absorbs the impacts of much needed moisture after a dry summer.
“Much of the area reported the wettest September on record,” said David Byers, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Grand Junction.
Durango-La Plata County Airport recorded rainfall totals of about 3.2 inches of rain from the late September storms, Byers said. In the mountains above 12,000 feet, that rain became snow.
Vallecito Reservoir rose about 18 feet, or about 30,000 acre-feet, from this fall’s moisture.
The water discharge of the Animas River, measured in cubic feet per second, went from about 230 cfs on Sept. 1 to a high of a little over 2,400 cfs on Tuesday after the storms.
(Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)
Animas River, Sept. 30, 2026, my photo used as header.
Oct. 1 at 7:34 am, lots of fog gives a close feeling, as the mountains have disappeared.
By 7:49 the mountain ridges have returned as the fog starts to lift. My photos aren't edited at all in this post.
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Friday night I had one of those rare and uncomfortable experiences. Not personal issues this time. The building. The neighbors!
The fire alarm went off...which apparently means the smoke detectors beep like maniacs in each apartment. So I first thought, something electrical is smoking, and turned off the oxygen machine, opened the windows. Then I noticed the hallway had the main alarm going off too...when I opened the front door to see if there was smoke coming out of my apartment, and thankfully not. Screeching alarm going all this time.
I'd gone to sleep about 9:30 and this was 10:30. What should I do? I decided 911 was in order, and the woman could barely hear me, but she said a fire unit was arriving right now. (the advantage of being right in town). Her suggestion, since I didn't have smoke or flames was to get away from the sound.
I looked out in the hall again while talking with her on the phone, and saw several people down at the end of the hall, and one woman with a purse and coat going into the stairs. Ah yes, evacuate the building.
Got my shoes, coat, purse and phone...and glasses finally...and locked the apartment and started down the stairs. At that point, nobody else was in the hall. I opened the door on 3 and saw more people standing out in a group of 3 about halfway down the hall...just talking and looking at me. By the time I got to 2, I heard firemen coming in from the first floor. That meant they had already walked the length of the first floor and were coming up. So I went back up stairs, and saw one of them go in on the second floor, and one on the third. Nobody came up to 4, where I slowly climbed the stairs to go back home. My new next door neighbor was standing in the hallway, as well as the woman who has lived here a while who is a bit batty and maybe sight or hearing impaired. Anyway the new woman asked her if this happened a lot...no she said. Batty woman said it was because someone was cooking. I don't mean to be unkind, but I found our when meeting her that she can't carry on a conversation. At least I got to meet my new neighbor, who I think is named Jan.
At that point the sirens turned off. Ahh, such relief, but the adrenalin was certainly still pumping. No idea what had happened. Sat and drank a root beer, because there was no way I could go back to bed for at least another 15 minutes. That was about as long as the alarms had gone on.
It's interesting because there was a message pinned to my door just that morning saying the fire department was going to inspect the alarms on Oct. 8. Well, I guess they know by now that they work!
I sure do.
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Yesterday morning (after the fire alarms the night before) I made a point to ask some of the residents who gather to smoke what had happened. Someone knew it was burnt toast. Someone else said they had forgotten it even happened. There is a kiosk shelter with chairs for people who smoke, outside and away from the building. I wonder however, how many still will light up late at night...
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In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
-Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer (1564-1642)
