Crews pull weekend duty on storm aftermath in EPC

El Paso County work crews said the stormy weekend didn’t cause as much damage as they expected but there still was plenty to keep some of them busy.

One crew repaired a washed-out section of Sunny Slope Road in Falcon. High water draining from flooded yards and ditches caused severe erosion. The road was closed temporarily but reopened late Sunday morning.

“This is the most severe flooding I’ve seen here,” said Debra Greer, a neighbor. “It concerns me a little but I feel that my house is safe.”

Another crew used heavy equipment to remove debris that clogged a small private bridge on Kelly Lane, near Interstate 25 and Woodmen Road.

Max Kirschbaum, operations manager for county public services, said the debris washed down Monument Creek during the wet weekend.

“It’s really not county jurisdiction but we’re performing a necessary service,” he said. “This location in particular is certainly a choke point on Monument Creek. I don’t know if there is a longer-term solution in place. But right now, it’s deal with it as water rises.”

Neighbors said a local pastor and his family live on the opposite side of the bridge and that they are able to come and go on another road connected to their property.

It’s unclear whether the bridge may be undermined by the several days it was covered by rushing water.

“If it is, repairing it will be the owner’s responsibility,” Kirschbaum said.

Kirschbaum said many gravel roads in the county are full of potholes but the weather has been too wet for crews to fill them.

“Until it gets dry, we’re asking drivers to take it slow and easy on those roads,” he said.

Kirschbaum said 16 plows continued to remove snow through the day on the north side of the county, and that the county has a limited number of smaller vehicles to plow neighborhood streets.

“We expected 3 to 4 inches of snow and the north side got as much as 8,” he said. “But the situation looked much better after the sun came out and we had some melting.”