Colorado Floods
Floor Speech
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Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I would like to thank my colleague Mark Udall for summarizing so well what we are facing out in Colorado. I thought I would share a few of my thoughts too.
As Senator Udall said, our State is in the midst of unprecedented flooding that has wiped out entire communities in over a dozen counties across Colorado. Last week rain began to fall across our State, across the Colorado Front Range, and it didn't let up. A lot of reports have termed this historic, but to get your head around the scale and scope of the damage it is important to express what that means in hard numbers.
In the course of 1 week, 21 inches of rain fell in parts of Boulder, including over 9 inches on September 12 alone. The previous alltime high for a single day in Boulder was 4.8 inches in 1919, and they have kept records since 1893. The average annual precipitation in Denver is 14.9 inches--for an entire year. On September 12, 11.5 inches poured down in Aurora. Just to give a sense of the order of magnitude, that is almost as much rain as it typically gets in 1 year--in 1 day. It was the same story all across the Colorado Front Range. The result was flooding, destruction, and tragedy on an unprecedented and unmanageable scale.
Based on the latest estimates, over 17,000 homes were seriously damaged, over 1,500 homes were completely destroyed, and over 2,300 agricultural properties were flooded. In just Larimer County alone, they estimate that 200 businesses were destroyed and 500 more were damaged. At least 30 highway bridges were destroyed, and at least 20 more were seriously damaged. Hundreds of miles--hundreds of miles--of major roads have been washed away, as Senator Udall said. The floodwaters consumed more than 2,000 square miles across 15 counties along the Front Range--an area about twice the size of Rhode Island. Because the rain is just finally letting up and emergency officials are only beginning to measure the magnitude of this rain, these numbers could easily go up, and they could go up a lot.
As recently as yesterday morning, 4 days after the flooding reached a crisis, over 1,000 Coloradans are still stranded and awaiting evacuation, with hundreds still not accounted for. Tens of thousands were forced to evacuate, and many had to abandon their homes within minutes, grabbing whatever they could carry and wading through rising waters to seek shelter and safety. Most tragic of all, eight Coloradans are either confirmed or presumed dead as a result of this storm. Those are just some of the numbers and a taste of the pain this disaster has brought to cities and counties across our State.
As Senator Udall mentioned, over the weekend I joined him and Governor Hickenlooper and others on a helicopter tour of the damage, and from the air the scope and scale of the destruction boggles the mind. Here is some of what we saw. These photos were taken from the Denver Post and other media.
Here is an image showing dozens of vehicles flooded in Greeley, CO.
Here is a home and a car stranded after a flash flood destroyed a bridge near Golden. Dozens of other bridges also collapsed.
This is a picture of the Big Thompson River washing out the Loveland Water Storage Reservoir.
In this picture, young Casey Roy, 9 years old, is looking through a window into her family's basement under 3 feet of water. And there are thousands of families in Colorado just like Casey's.
Finally, this image shows the Big Thompson River overflowing and tearing apart Colorado U.S. 34 in the Big Thompson Canyon--another example of the damage to the infrastructure across our State.
Madam President, how much time is remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. No time is remaining.
Mr. BENNET. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BENNET. I won't go on too much longer, but in addition to showing these images, I do want to pass along a few of the stories we are hearing from Colorado families from the past week.
In Jamestown, a small mountain community of just a few hundred people in the mountains northwest of Boulder, a mudslide destroyed the home of 72-year-old Joey Howlett, a pillar of that community. It killed him. In the hours that followed, Jamestown residents pooled their resources so that no one was without food or shelter. The town, isolated from outside assistance, was literally split in two by the flood, so they rigged a pulley system to carry food, medicine, and supplies across the rising waters to fellow townspeople.
Just outside of Lyons, CO, four adults, three children, and two dogs had to scramble up hills and across ledges with no trails to escape the floodwater. At one point they literally had to make a human chain across waist-deep water so nobody would be carried away. These are a few of the thousands of stories from across our State.
We know these floods are devastating. We know the loss some Colorado families feel today is beyond words. We know some have lost loved ones, and many others have lost homes and businesses that took them decades to build. But stories such as this remind me Coloradans are resilient, that the worst disasters often bring out the best in our neighbors. All across the State we have seen Coloradans of different ages, backgrounds, and beliefs pull together and help each other get through this massive storm. We saw real heroism a thousand times a day as first responders and National Guardsmen risked life and limb to carry the young, the old, the vulnerable, and the injured to safety.
I close by saying thank you to the FEMA Administrator for his prompt response to our request to declare a disaster. He would not let me leave the floor without saying that if you are in Boulder, Weld, Adams, or Larimer Counties, and impacted, you can go to
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disasterassistance.gov or call 1-800-621-FEMA to register for disaster assistance.
As we move from rescue to recovery, frustration and enormous challenges lie ahead. We know in the coming weeks, months, and even years Colorado is going to face a lot of rebuilding, and we will rise to this occasion. We will build it back better than it was before it was destroyed. We are going to fight every day for Colorado families, many of whom have lost everything, to make sure they are getting the support they need.
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