After the hail chase of yesterday, we kicked off in east Denver with another round of severe storms expected in the afternoon just east of town. First storms went up near Deer Trail and we made a run down I-70 to get at them. Early on, they showed potential as some scud was getting pulled up into the base of the storm, but that feature was short lived as the storm proceeded to the east.
That storm crossed I-70 on its way east, covering the immediate area in a little ground-covering hail. Nothing we were able to get into, but certainly would’ve been a fun core to play in.
New cells to the northwest were kicking up on the outflow this storm barfed out, and we flipped around, retreating back west on I-70 up through Byers and eventually Strausburg where we jumped south to get into the core of the storms there. A north/south, slow moving cluster had formed on the outflow and was basically parked over the area.
We dipped south trying to get into the the stronger core, but with very little hail and just a ton of rain, we shot east over to Kiowa-Bennett Road and then turned north to get back to I-70. As we got to the interstate, we noticed a line of cars stopped on the road ahead of us, so we crossed I-70 and saw what was going on.
The nearby field had flooded and water was pouring out of the field onto the road there near the intersection of Kiowa-Bennett Road and CO-36. It looked pretty intense as the water was rushing over the road. We sat there for a bit in the line until the biggest truck in the line decided to give it a go.
The large truck was the first to plow through the water, which led others to crossing the water. While not terribly deep, it was moving enough where it would be of concern, particularly to smaller, lightweight vehicles.
After they successfully crossed, traffic began to move, a few turned around, but most were of enough size and girth to get themselves through. The issue, though, was that it was early in this cycle, and the water was starting to get deeper, which finally starting turning most other vehicles around.
As we were sitting there, another core blew up over us, dumping even more rain onto the area. We took the long way around through Bennett to get ourselves on the CO-36 side of the flooding with a bit more to maneuver on that side of the flood. We also wanted to see if the issues extended into the town, to which they fortunately did not.
As rain continued to fall and water rose across Kiowa-Bennett Road, more water started spilling out, this time across CO-36 on the east side of the intersection.
More vehicles were getting turned around coming off I-70 as the water continued to get deeper. Occasionally, someone, usually a bigger truck, would plow through, but it was much less than earlier.
The next vehicle to approach was a school bus. The bus, too, stopped before the flood and did the proper ‘Turn Around, Don’t Drown’…
Unfortunately, the school bus is longer than a typical car, so pulling a three-point turnaround on a narrow two-lane road was not going to be easy. And it wasn’t. The bus backed up too far, dropping its back wheels into the flooded ditch and getting stuck at the edge of the flooding.
Water levels had been rising pretty fast, and with rain still coming down and the water still going up, we were concerned that the bus may get overtaken. It was right at the bottom of the decline going in to where the water was filling up. We also weren’t sure if there were any kids on the bus and couldn’t tell conclusively through the rain. So we decided to get over there ASAP just in case as we could try to help in some way, although what way that would be wasn’t really known. Having seen a vehicle of similar size make it across moments earlier, we went for it.
While not my brightest moment, we did make it across and made contact with the driver to confirm there were no kids on the bus. The driver said they were fine to hang on, and we offered to call someone in to get them pulled back onto the road. They were grateful, and we called some help over as it was pretty amazing no one had showed up yet.
The rain finally subsided, and several vehicles from Adams County Sherriff and the State Patrol along with a wrecker all arrived on scene. They closed the road and the wrecker made quick work freeing the bus from the ditch and getting it back on pavement and getting it on the way.
Turns around there really was no non-flooded way out of this area. CO-36 was under water just east of this intersection, and it was also flooded about a mile west of there. The bus was blocking the road between there and I-70, so we were kinda camped there documenting the scene as the waters were fairly quick to recede. As they did, we noticed a sinkhole had formed on the west side of Kiowa-Bennett Road near the intersection.
We were finally able to get back west on CO-36 into Bennett where we gassed up. Most of the storms had either weakened significantly or pushed well east of us, so we decided to call it a chase, making the haul down to Lamar for the night.
