THE POWER OF WATER

(Flood receding in downtown Estes Park, Colorado, July 15, 1982.)

Library Lady and I were talking the other day about the recent flooding tragedy in Arkansas and how my great neph Luke and I missed it by a week during our travels there earlier this month. (We stayed at a motel in a town close to the affected campground.) She reminded me that this wasn’t my first miss with a disastrous flood. Back in 1982 I was at Estes Park, Colorado the day the nearby Lawn Lake dam broke, killing three campers and devastating the downtown.

I was with Big Sis and her family in a cabin next to one of two rivers flowing into Estes Park. At the time we heard the early morning radio news about the dam bursting, we weren’t sure yet which river would be affected by the flooding, the north one or south one we were by, so I grabbed my then-11-year-old nephew Brandon by the hand, got my billfold, and we scooted up to higher land. No one else felt our urgency. They stayed at the cabin listening to the radio and eating breakfast.

Brandon and I would surely be the soul survivors. “They just wouldn’t listen to us,” I would sadly tell our rescuers. “Alas, eggs and bacon were more important to them.”

But, as it turned out, the flood was raging down the north river. Big Sis yelled the, “All’s clear!” sign to us, and Brandon and I returned to the cabin to scour through the leftovers. “Be prepared.” That’s The Flaming Bore motto.

We drove into Estes Park to look at the devastation. Water and debris were raging down Main Street (photo above) and into Estes Lake. It was sad to see this little mountain town in such a mess, and I felt sorry for those who lost their lives, forever buried under the rocks and mud of the landslide. They didn’t know what hit them.

A few years ago Big Bore and I went to Estes Park, which has long since recovered, but, from a distance, Rocky Mt. National Park still shows the gaping scar of Lawn Lake’s dam bursting (above picture). Up close, however, giant boulders harmlessly rest in the area as though they have always been there, and a little stream splashes calmly over them. It’s a peaceful scene. The kind where you suck in the fresh mountain air and are thankful that you have this day to enjoy the beauty. No one would think that 28 years ago those rocks and water came angrily rushing down the mountainside, causing death and destruction. The power of water is, indeed, a force not be taken lightly.