El Paso County makes progress on flood damage repair affecting roads after summer 2023 storms
EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) — Crews have been busy since December working on and around roads in three areas that sustained extensive erosion damage from flooding after heavy rain in June 2023.
Repairs started late in the year when the risk of rain that could cause more flooding is low, and the county hopes to finish in early summer before monsoon season arrives.
The damage happened along the boundary of Peyton and Calhan, on the east side of the county.
Flooding in Black Squirrel Creek washed out a section of unpaved JD Johnson Road and deposited tons of sediment on private property; the high water also damaged part of paved Garrett Road, just around the corner and downstream from Johnson.
A few miles to the east, flooding in Brackett Creek undermined a segment of Ellicott Highway — just north of Falcon Highway — and will require a different repair strategy because of heavier traffic there.
It's the type of flood that happens only once or twice per century.
"We have actually talked to some residents there," said Veronica Cid, a senior county engineer. "They said (that) they haven't seen a flow like that in since 1960. Nobody saw it except the residents who live there. We came two weeks after. We can tell the water spread out pretty wide. It went over the channel."
On Johnson, crews are stabilizing and widening the creek bed; they're also rebuilding the washed-out road section that will be lower than before but lined with concrete for stability.
Cid said that the new road segment will have culverts underneath that will allow low water flows but will be impassible during higher water events.
"We'll put signs up to inform people of that," she said.
On Garrett, crews are making channel improvements and erosion repairs and have temporarily replaced a washed-out road segment that will later be permanently replaced with concrete.
The floodwaters passed just behind the National Mill Dog Rescue.
The damaged section of Ellicott Highway will also be replaced with concrete, and workers will install a reinforced concrete culvert underneath; the channel will have structures installed to slow the velocity of water during storm events and reduce the erosion risk.
Although the flood damage is in a rural area, there are now more people who live in and travel through it than during the last such flood in 1960.
The county is spending approximately $7.5 million to design and complete repairs; much of that is federal money from the National Resource Conservation Services Grant, but to qualify for it, the county contributed nearly $2 million from its emergency reserve fund.
Cid said that the county isn't authorized to remove flood sediment from private property.
Repairs have progressed enough that crews are now parking construction vehicles on both sides of the Johnson wash-out to eliminate the temptation for people to try and drive through.
Late Friday morning, a construction worker told KRDO-13's The Road Warrior that the damaged section of Johnson should reopen to traffic in a few weeks; after that, Garrett will close for further repairs.
