Boulder's Tech Workers Cope With Historic Flood

dcblogs writes "Boulder Co. was recently ranked first in nation for its 'high-tech start-up density,' for cities of its size by the Kauffman Foundation. The ranking is based on a ratio of start-ups to population. But the tech community has left its downtown offices, some of which are flooded and others under threat. Normally there are 70 people working in Gnip's office, but Chris Moody, the CEO, in response to request from the city to get traffic off roads, closed the office. In another part of downtown, TeamSnap's building was flooding, and Dave DuPont, its CEO, said his only commute option was 'by boat.' The city's decision to ask businesses to close was a sign 'that the worse might still be in front us,' said Moody."

Comments

Colleague there

[war4peace]

I have a colleague working there, in the Oracle Campus, he said it's pretty bad. Broken roads, flash floods, people being rescued in the nick of time and such.

Re: Colleague there

[pspahn]

I was looking at USGS stream data last night and this morning. Colorado DOW

Boulder Creek (the river running through Boulder) is normally running at 50-100 CFS (ft.3/sec) at this time of year. Last night it was flowing at over 5400 CFS, and this morning when I looked it was still over 5000.

For comparison's sake, that is about 30% more volume than is currently running down the Colorado River at the Utah state line.

Other streams in the Front Range are at similar biblical levels. Last measurement on the Cache La Poudre were nearing 6000. Data simply shows "E" at the moment (value exceeds maximum). Big Thompson was around 5000, but also currently shows no current data.

What we have right now are a handful of typically small streams that have transformed into Colorado River sized flows, all dumping into the same drainage system, the South Platte River.

Folks in Nebraska might want to start sandbagging.

From Someone Who Works in Boulder

[Scorpinox]

I work in Boulder, but the Sheriff's office said that everyone should stay home today. A lot of the roads are perfectly fine, but empty because everyone is staying home. A few spots are really flooded and impassable though. As far as I know, my office isn't flooded, but we did put all our computers on our desks as a precaution. I'm sort of nervous because I forgot to push my code before I left, so I might have to redo some work if something happens to my computer.

Re:From Someone Who Works in Boulder

[Anonymous Coward]

You should have been using Hadoop and big tables and/or nosql as well as a more synergistically scalable green cloud solution. Your core incompetency has directly contributed to global warming and you now reap what you have sown as the cows come home to roost. Your check has come due and the consequences will never be the same.

Not that bad

[n0ano]

When did this story get written, the worst is pretty much past. At 11:30AM local time I'm looking at blue sky, the streams around Boulder crested last night, we're now in restoration mode (I'm lucky, my basement flooded out such that the hallway carpeting is soaked but there's no standing water, unlike my neighbors who share a wall with me and had about 2 inches of standing water throughout their basement).

Things are bad but, at least in Boulder, they're not catastrophic. Some of the surrounding communities, especially up toward the mountains, got it worse, there are some serious evacuations going on up there, but Boulder is fine.

Re:Not that bad

[NatasRevol]

Video of water coming down the Big Thompson Canyon from Estes Park.

Usually water is a trickle this time of year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWGK4CiWxeM

Skip to the 7:00 mark to see what's left of the road.

Local Resident

[Bigbutt]

I live and work in Boulder County (Longmont). The St. Vrain is a pretty minor stream that runs through the center of Longmont however yesterday it had jumped the banks and split the town in half. I work in the south side but live on the north side. While I rode my motorcycle to work yesterday morning, my manager essentially told me to catch a ride with a coworker to get home. We went way over on the east side of town to get over the river and back to my place.

I've had a little water seepage at my place but I did learn that I had an outdoor sump pump that was keeping the basement mostly dry. A good thing.

I did have to break down my computer gear and bring it up stairs so I could continue to access the 'net. I also evacuated half the room and used a wetvac to suck up the water (about 10 gallons since yesterday).

There are a lot of people worse off than I am though and I'm hoping they get through it ok. I'm keeping up with friends and family via facebook (nyah) and working from home so keeping busy.

It's going to take a bit to get things back to normal though. Lots of places are washed out or inaccessible (Lyons is just a few miles away from me and Estes Park is about 20 miles up in the mountains) and of course lots of road and bridge damage.

Stay safe.

[John]

Re:Idiots

[ColdWetDog]

Cue the eurotrash telling us how we are so stupid for building so close to the coast, where floods are a problem.

Boulder County has been in FEMA's 'disasters waiting to happen' for decades. One of the more entertaining factoids is that the major communication center, the Police Department is located, wait for it, in a flood plain, in a building that was supposed to be used for a hotel but the developer could not approval from the city to complete the structure.

So it was taken over by the City and County.

Strong work, there.....

Referendum against diverting flood water

[JoeyRox]

In keeping with Boulder's progressive nature I have filed a request for referendum at city hall that would make it illegal to direct, divert, absorb, or otherwise disrupt the natural flow of flood water through the city. Unfortunately this will mean homes and businesses will be flooded beyond repair but someone must represent Mother Nature's interests.

Re:What is Boulder Co.?

[OhSoLaMeow]

Someone told me they were involved with a process for watering down Czech beer for American consumption.

Nah, they're in Golden, CO - not Boulder.

Closing businesses should be a no-brainer

[TheNastyInThePasty]

The city must ask businesses to close because evidently putting your employees' lives in mortal danger isn't too big a risk when there's profit to be had!