Larimer County’s office of Emergency Preparedness warned this morning that huge demand for sandbags in communities from the Missouri River west has made the crucial flood protection devices hard to come by in Colorado.
The wholesale supplier the county has used has a new shipment in the warehouse, but more than half are already spoken for and the rest may be gone by the end of the week.
“If you need bags in quantity, get them in the next couple days,” said Emergency Management manager Erik Nilsson in his regular Larimer County Emergency Information update. “I do not know the status of other wholesale suppliers in Colorado but it may be prudent to assume they are close to these circumstances as well.”
Nilsson also reported that flows in the Cache la Poudre River, which had been increasing about 600 cfs each morning, has risen only about half that in the past two days despite warm temperatures.
“We shouldn’t read much into that except to observe we still only have bike path flooding in Fort Collins and some noticeable high water in the area of County Road 5 at Harmony. This will change as everyone knows,” Nilsson said. “The Poudre at the canyon mouth came in at 3,250 cfs. The Big Thompson this morning was in the mid 700s for flow in Estes Park in the early morning hours with still no problems to report. Additional releases from the dam on Lake Estes boosted the canyon flow up to around 900 cfs with around 1,070 total in Loveland.”
Nilsson said forecasts of temperatures only in the 70s through the next few days may slow the melt. But, he said, “It is way too early to think we might dodge the bullet, but this is a good forecast. We’ll see if it holds.”
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