A levee north of Pueblo on Fountain Creek gave way this morning, flooding a 50-acre basin and forcing the evacuation of about 15 homes and businesses along Dillon Drive, according to the Pueblo Fire Department.
The levee’s 100-foot breach at about 8:30 a.m. sent about half the flow of the creek into the basin, said Woody Percival, spokesman for the Pueblo Fire Department.
The water reached levels of up to 6 feet, he said. Firefighters went door to door to urge residents to leave. Some homes showed water levels had reached 18 inches, and others had about 5 feet of water on their properties, he said.
City and county crews cut through a levee south of the flooded basin to relieve some of the water that was building up, he said.
Trucks carrying loads of riprap – a mixture of large rocks, concrete and sand – were making their way to the breached levee to make repairs, Percival said. He expected that the repair work would take all night.
Percival said investigators are trying to confirm why the flood occurred.
“My guess is we had a very stormy night, a lot of water coming down the creek,” he said. “We just had a pretty good storm surge. At some point, it started to fail.”
However, the National Weather Service in Pueblo said only 1 to 2 inches of rain fell in Colorado Springs on Sunday night, which wasn’t enough to cause flooding. A meteorologist said water-flow gauges on Fountain Creek showed it to be flowing slightly above normal and not close to flood stage.
