Catastrophic flooding thrashes southwestern Colorado for 2nd week – The Denver Post

Catastrophic flooding thrashes southwestern Colorado for 2nd week  The Denver Post

Southwestern Colorado residents were hit with another round of destructive flooding Sunday and Monday as rivers and creeks overflowed their banks for the second time in a week, rushing into homes and businesses, sweeping away property and stranding people. Southwestern Colorado residents were hit with another round of destructive flooding Sunday and Monday as rivers and creeks overflowed their banks for the second time in less than two weeks, rushing into homes and businesses, sweeping away property and stranding people. Community leaders and law enforcement officials in La Plata, Archuleta, Rio Grande, Mineral, Conejos and Montezuma counties were still trying to understand the scale of the damage as floodwaters slowly started to recede Monday night, and mandatory evacuation orders and widespread road closures remained active throughout the region.

While Sunday’s storm brought similar or slightly less rain than the storm that caused widespread flooding in the area more than a week earlier, the water had nowhere to go, National Weather Service meteorologist Eric Petersen said. The ground was still saturated from the previous floods, unable to absorb much more, and reservoirs were already filled to the brink, pushing water downstream, said Petersen, who works in the weather service’s Pueblo office. Lucas Boyer, a meteorologist with the Grand Junction office, said Archuleta and La Plata counties saw the largest impacts of