Then and Now: Reflecting on the 2013 Flood Ten Years Later

Ariel photo showing the scale of destruction as swollen rivers cut new channels through anything in their path.
All photos courtesy of EVWC

It’s hard to believe that a decade has passed since the infamous flood of 2013 that devastated huge swaths of the Front Range and forever altered both our landscape and our lives. An entire year’s worth of rain fell in just a few days, and when the raging water finally began to recede, the damage assessments were staggering: 9 lives lost, over $4 billion worth of infrastructure, homes, and businesses destroyed, and countless miles of sensitive riparian habitat severely eroded and degraded. In the immediate wake of such an apocalyptic event, it seemed like we’d never be able to put all the pieces back together again.

Streamside vegetation was stripped away from the banks, destabilizing soil and loading the rivers with excess sediment.

Fourteen counties, including Larimer, had declared a state of emergency by September 12th, and as federal and state funding began to pour in over the coming weeks and months, the need for local coordination of these massive relief efforts soon became apparent. Rebuilding roads and bridges was a fairly straightforward process, but rebuilding our waterways–on which over one million Coloradoans downstream depend–would require expert guidance and careful planning over the course of many years to come. The Estes Valley Watershed Coalition was formed in early 2015 by a group of volunteer residents as a direct response to these emerging needs, and has been working toward restoring and improving our water, forests, and wildlife habitats ever since.

Before (left) and after (right) photo of the Ore Cart Rock Shop, showing riverbank fortifications coordinated and funded by EVWC.

EVWC board member Frank Lancaster was Estes Park’s Town Administrator at that time, and he recalls that, “The newly-formed coalition played an integral lead role in coordinating all aspects of watershed restoration efforts, which were not only crucial to our community’s overall recovery, but which also took a great deal of pressure off the town’s emergency response efforts, freeing up valuable resources for other pressing tasks.”

A severely eroded bank is re-shaped by an excavator (left) before the soil can be stablized by new vegetation and sediment barriers (right).

Over the past decade, EVWC has secured and distributed more than $4 million in federal and state funding toward this goal, operating with minimal overhead due to the countless hours donated by its all-volunteer board of directors. Thanks to their tireless efforts, thousands of feet of riverbanks have been restored and replanted with native willows, helping to regulate water temperature and sediment load; dozens of acres of wetlands have been renourished by slowing down the flows in deeply-channelized areas and allowing water to soak back into the surrounding valleys; and hundreds of acres of forest have been fortified against the ravages of wildfire, which can lead to suffocating quantities of ash and debris in our lakes and rivers.

Volunteers install an artifical beaver dam on Fish Creek, which helps to slow water down so that it can re-hydrate the surrounding wetland.

And yet, in spite of all these accomplishments, there is still much work remaining to be done. The flood may have only lasted a few days, but the damage it wrought continues to impact our community even after all this time has passed. Fortunately for us, and for the millions of people who visit the Estes Valley each year, our community has proven its resilience and steadfast dedication to environmental stewardship, even in the face of a once-in-a-thousand-years catastrophe.

Local student volunteers stand ready to plant willows and remove invasive plant species along lower Fish Creek.