Serving communities in crisis
Colorado engineers still hard at work one year after historic flooding event
By Jennifer Schmidt
C
atastrophic Colorado flooding made headlines last
September, destroying homes and roads, damaging
key infrastructure, and temporarily paralyzing
parts of the state in its wake. Affected communities began
repairing and rebuilding immediately, and a team from
Ayres Associates has been at the ready to help along the
way.
With two offices in Colorado – one in Fort Collins and
another in Denver – Ayres’ civil and hydraulic engineers,
hydrologists, geomorphologists, and surveying specialists
were in the heart of the hardest hit areas and well
positioned to assist with the emergency flood work.
“This was in our backyard,” said Anthony Alvarado, a water
resources engineer in Ayres’ Fort Collins office. “We were
familiar with the Big Thompson River. A lot of the affected
sites we’d already done previous work on, and we’ve
driven the damaged corridors many times.”
This shot of the Big Thompson Canyon, which stretches to
the Town of Estes Park, Colorado, was taken the day after the
September 2013 flood’s peak.
Since the crisis unfolded, Ayres has provided emergency,
post-flood support to the cities of Fort Collins and
Loveland, including high-water-mark readings, field
engineering, and bank protection. Ayres also helped
protect one of the City of Loveland’s main water lines and
provided river engineering support within the Colorado
Department of Transportation’s Incident Command Center,
or ICC.
One year later, recovery efforts are still very much under
way.
Alvarado and Ayres geomorphologist Bill Spitz served
as members of the ICC’s permanent assessment teams,
charged with visiting the damaged sites, evaluating the
emergency repairs, and identifying permanent solutions –
work that kept them busy until mid-January.
The Ayres team has also immersed itself in work for Weld
County, Colorado. Five bridge sites along the Big and Little
Thompson rivers needed repairs prior to spring runoff to
avoid additional damage, and the team assisted with the
associated repairs and recommendations. Alvarado has
been managing the Weld County work.
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