Four pedestrian paths in Denver pass through short tunnels adjacent to waterways, and at two of them, people were swept away by flash floods Monday night.
Public Works officials said most bike paths or walking trails next to water in the city pass under bridges when a street or other obstacle crosses the path. And they plan to replace the tunnel systems, or culverts, in the future.
“We are working toward getting those upgraded or changed to a bridge system,” said City Engineer Lesley Thomas.
But widening and updating drainages is an ongoing and expensive proposition, Public Works manager Bill Vidal said.
Two-year-old Jose Matthew Jauregui Jr. was swept from his stroller to his death Monday after his mother sought shelter from pelting rain and hail in a culvert on Lakewood Gulch. His body was found Wednesday miles downstream.
Monday’s storm doused the city with more than half an inch of rain in 13 minutes, flushing the culvert.
At a similar culvert on Goldsmith Gulch in south Denver, police Officer Jairon Katz nearly drowned trying to rescue a young man caught in the flooding, police said. No body has been recovered in that incident.
Vidal said many tunnel-type culverts, similar to the four in Denver, were built in the region decades ago. He said Denver and other metro-area cities have been working with the Urban Drainage & Flood Control District for years to update the drainage system.
“Did anyone ever say that this is unsafe? Absolutely,” he said. “We have situations like this all over the region that the region has been trying to fix over decades. The region works with Urban Drainage … to stay away from these closed culvert kinds of things.”
On Thursday, Mayor John Hickenlooper walked along the Lakewood Gulch culvert where Jose and his mother, Elsha Guel, were washed downstream. Guel was rescued.
“It’s hard to be here and not be affected,” Hickenlooper said, surveying concrete more than 10 feet high that lines the gulch at one end of the culvert.
The mayor said the city will put up signs there warning about flooding.
A sign currently posted and sprayed with graffiti reads, “Trail may be slippery or under water.”
Hickenlooper happened on hydrologist Robert Jarrett, who was taking measurements along the gulch for the U.S. Geological Survey.
Jarrett said water rose between 1 foot and 2 feet through the culvert. He said while the depth may not have been overwhelming, the speed and power of the water moving through “would have knocked you and I right off our feet.”
“The water just came up too quickly,” he said.
Vidal said Denver has a $5.67 million plan to improve Lakewood Gulch. He said the city is working with Urban Drainage and the Regional Transportation District on the gulch as the FasTracks west- corridor rail project goes in.
In the meantime, he cautioned that gulches and drainages were designed to flood over the pedestrian trails, whether there are culverts or not.
“Many of our trails were built along gulches – like Lakewood Gulch, like Cherry Creek, like Harvard Gulch – because they are greenways and beautiful,” he said. “Those were done understanding that the gulches carry 100-year storm water.”
Staff writer George Merritt can be reached at 303-954-1657 or gmerritt@denverpost.com.
