Colorado floods required
immediate response
By Tawny Quast
T
his fall, heavy rain and historic flooding ravaged
the state of Colorado. The powerful waters caused
widespread damage to critical infrastructure and
transportation networks, washing out hundreds of miles of
roads, cutting off access to many small mountain towns,
and damaging nearly 2,000 square miles.
The City of Loveland, which is south of Fort Collins in
the Colorado Front Range region, was hit particularly hard.
Raging flood waters damaged two of the three water lines
feeding the City, and the sole remaining line was at risk
after the Big Thompson River changed its course.
With no time to waste, City officials quickly contacted
Ayres Associates for assistance.
“We have a long relationship with Ayres and Ayres’
staff members, including Chris Pletcher, Sam Lowe, Jim
Schall, and others,” said Chris Matkins, water utilities
manager for the City’s Water & Power Department. “Chris
(Pletcher) has worked integrally with us over the previous
few years on many different water and wastewater topics.
He is trained in emergency management, is quick to
respond, and offers a strong sense of reasoning. He’s a
natural fit for the culture of our utilities and was one of the
first people I reached out to.”
In the ensuing days, Pletcher, along with a team from
the City of Loveland and Ayres Associates, developed
and executed a plan to push the river back to its original
location, a feat that Schall, vice president in Ayres
Associates’ Fort Collins office, had never come close to
encountering in his 33-year career.
“To be able to come up with a plan, mobilize resources,
and get to work in that short amount of time is pretty
incredible,” Schall said. “Normally it would take at least
six months just to get a design and permits approved.”
Pletcher joined the City’s Emergency Operations
Center to troubleshoot problems, particularly to utilities,
and Ayres Associates soon signed a contract with Loveland
to provide emergency support.
Ayres Associates also quickly mobilized for the City
of Fort Collins. With the Poudre and Big Thompson rivers
just past peak flood stage, a group of 10 employees from
the Fort Collins office volunteered for the City to take
high water mark readings on the Poudre River. This work
involved staking high water marks, taking pictures, and
recording field notes at locations along the river. Later
about half the group went to the City of Loveland to do the
same work on the Big Thompson River.
Dusty Robinson, a civil engineer in Ayres Associates’
Fort Collins office, along with Jason Krueger, a geospatial
project manager in the firm’s Madison, Wisconsin, office,
had a conference call with the City of Fort Collins’
floodplain administrator and the state administrator of
the Colorado Water Conservation Board. On that call,
Robinson and Krueger began making arrangements to
schedule aerial photography of the flooded areas.
Ayres Associates' Fort Collins municipal engineering
group worked nonstop in the field to assess damage to
utility lines. The group assessing Loveland damage worked
seven days straight, from 6 a.m. to 9 or 10 p.m. during the
peak of the emergency. But Pletcher said the long hours and
time away from family is just part of that deep-rooted client
relationship.
“To me the City of Loveland is part of my family.
When your family is in trouble, you don’t count your
personal costs. You do what you need to do to help out,” he
said.
Although the emergency has now passed, much work
remains.
“Our water and wastewater utilities have completed
the emergency actions and repairs necessary to keep our
customers in service,” Matkins said. “We’ve now begun
our long-term recovery efforts. This will include design and
reconstruction of significant infrastructure over the next
year or two.”
He commended the Ayres Associates team for its
effective response to a monumental flooding event.
“The City was fortunate in this event to have access to
such helpful technical experts, especially with expertise in
river geomorphology and flooding,” Matkins said. “Equally
important, our success as a utility during this emergency
was due largely to personal relationships and trust between
our staff and Ayres.”
TRENDS
│7