[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Page 21278]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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               COMMEMORATING THE 1997 SPRING CREEK FLOOD

 Mr. ALLARD. Madam President, today I commemorate the Spring 
Creek Flood in Fort Collins, CO, which occurred 10 years ago this 
weekend. As the rains began to fall on the evening of July 27, 1997, it 
would have been hard for anyone to believe that this seemingly typical 
summer afternoon storm would wreak havoc on the city.
  All told, 14.5 inches fell on Fort Collins within a 31-hour period of 
time. Composite rainfall patterns indicated that over 10 inches of rain 
blanketed a 30 square mile area of northern Colorado. This flood took 
the lives of 5 Fort Collins residents and forced over 400 to be rescued 
from the rising waters, severely damaged or destroyed approximately 
2,000 homes and businesses across the city, caused over $200 million in 
damage, including the near destruction of Colorado State University's 
library. The storm derailed a train and caused buildings to explode. 
This was not something this college town was used to experiencing. 
Those residents who were fortunate enough to be unaffected by the flood 
that night awoke to the sounds of helicopters, massive road closures, 
and local schools converted into Red Cross shelters. For a place that 
occasionally made national news by appearing on lists for ``best place 
to live'' and ``most restaurants per capita,'' this sudden and shocking 
destruction was not the reason why the people of Fort Collins ever 
imagined their town would be the top story on all the news networks.
  As quickly as the rains came that night, and continued through most 
of the following day, it was all over. Sadly, like the pictures we all 
vividly remember of recent natural disasters in the United States, many 
wondered aloud in Fort Collins 10 years ago how this could have 
happened here. As the small creeks that flowed peacefully along the 
sides of bike trails and through the parks and baseball fields of the 
city suddenly swelled and transformed into violent streams of water 
that engulfed so much, it seemed probable that this city of about 
110,000 residents would be permanently affected by this storm for a 
long time to come. For a community that had experienced tremendous 
expansion and job growth through the 1990s--due considerably to the 
rise of the tech boom--it appeared the good times had come to an end. 
With so many infrastructures in disrepair, it seemed unlikely that 
companies would continue to expand to Fort Collins in the manner they 
had been doing over the years preceding the flood.
  What had long been, and continues to be, the heart of Fort Collins, 
Colorado State University, received the brunt of the damage. Just 5 
weeks prior to the start of classes, a 7-foot wall of water that had 
concentrated its strength through the run off of many smaller floods 
tore through the main campus. Thirty-six buildings sustained 
significant damage, most especially the newly remodeled Morgan Library 
and the Lory Student Center. Rain-water, sewage and debris rushed 
through the library and destroyed about 425,000 books and journals, 
about one-quarter of the library's inventory. As school began that 
year, the students and professors adapted to a more nomadic life, but 
worked together, as they all faced the same obstacles.
  As time moved on, CSU began to recover from the flood, the Morgan 
Library was rebuilt and CSU took the opportunity to update its 
electronic resources, making them state-of-the-art. The drainage 
systems were updated and replaced, with walls and landscaping put in 
place to counter a flood 6 inches greater than what was experienced in 
1997. As CSU recovered, the city did as well. Beautification and clean-
up efforts took place on a massive scale, stronger bridges were built, 
and creeks were redesigned to more evenly disperse water should this 
500-year flood ever occur again. The community at-large pitched in to 
clean up the parks and neighborhoods that were littered by debris. 
Local businesses, the school district, and CSU all continued to work 
together and leaned on each other to bring Fort Collins back.
  As the Colorado summer faded into fall and the days began getting 
shorter, the mounds of ruined furniture and rows of unusable 
refrigerators that lined the neighborhood sidewalks for so long slowly 
began disappearing from the city's landscape and life started to get 
back to normal. Fort Collins has continued to grow over the last 10 
years and so has CSU. Still, there are many reminders today of the 
storm: from the occasional open spaces that were simply wiped out by 
the flood and never rebuilt; to new buildings, roads and bridges that 
were built following the storm; to the glaring markers that line the 
Spring Creek Trail showing the water levels on that day 10 years ago.
  Sadly, Fort Collins' experience with flooding and tragedy is shared 
by many communities across the Nation, most especially along the gulf 
coast in Louisiana and Mississippi, as many continue to struggle to 
find some semblance of normalcy almost 2 years after Katrina and Rita. 
Recently, we have seen massive floods throughout Texas and in the 
Midwest as well, particularly in Kansas and Missouri. While all these 
events are all uniquely tragic, it is my hope that the devastation 
experienced in Fort Collins, Colorado 10 years ago can serve as an 
example to the many other communities across the country that are not 
as far removed from their storms: that there is a light at the end of 
the tunnel, and as insurmountable as a natural disaster may seem, life 
will and does go on.

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