Interview with Dennis Coombs

 
Yellow Scene: How would you say this disaster has personally affected you?

Dennis Coombs: You know, the first day the rain really started coming down there was a period where it slowed enough for my wife and I to take the dogs for a walk down on the flood plain. When we did, we saw hundreds of crawdads scrambling around.

I turned to my wife and said “this is going to be big … Something huge is coming.”

I never knew how much endurance I had. I barely slept during the flood, and just found ways to keep going to get things done. I was also surprised at how organized the town was. We have all these contingency and emergency plans and guides, and to see them put into effect and work—with the help of a talented and experienced staff—was really special.

Watching the loss was not easy. I had a friend who closed on a house four days prior to the flood and watched it get completely destroyed.

To have a crisis of this magnitude, and to see disaster response plans work without having loss of life in our town, impacted me.

YS: Was the flood of 2013 the biggest natural disaster you have witnessed in Colorado?

DC: I have been living in Longmont since 1980 and the flood is definitely the worst disaster to hit Longmont while I have been living here.

YS: What is the biggest challenge of rebuilding Longmont?

DC: Cash flow for one.  One of our main priorities in rebuilding is fixing the river corridor as quickly as possible so it is able to handle high water, especially snow melt, in the near future, so that should another flood happen, the damage can be mitigated.

We also have to fix County Road 80, which was cut to channel floodwaters. And we have to clean up the dam and the reservoir, which are filled with debris like rocks, silt and fallen trees.

A lot of cash flow is necessary for this to happen. However, in order to qualify for a FEMA refund the town needs to spend the money first.  This means that we need to raise the money locally in order to maintain a positive cash flow, but because FEMA has been taking time to provide a refund, we are spending a lot of money and not seeing it returned yet.
 

YS: Would you say this is sort of the classic “need to spend money to make money” situation, albeit in rather epic proportions?

DC: Well, yes. To get the river corridor rebuilt and all the other essential projects completed requires the cash to be raised locally, and then FEMA refunds 75 percent of the cash and the state refunds 12.5 percent. FEMA has given some money to the state but it has not yet been distributed to us.

All the funds are coming from the town and there is simply a lag-time before we see any of them refunded, yet we still need to keep raising money to continue rebuilding.