Flooding possibility still a coin flip

It was not that long ago that the streets of Saratoga were lined with sandbags in a desperate attempt to keep the North Platte River from expanding into the town. The 100-year flood, in the summer of 2010, still haunt the memories of Saratoga residents, and sandbags remain resting along the shore from the last flood.

As the water levels in the river rapidly increase, an all too familiar question pops in the mind: will there be another flood this year?

At this point, it’s anyone’s guess.

“It’s a flip of the coin right now—we don’t know,” Saratoga Mayor and Carbon County Emergency Management Coordinator John Zeiger said. “If I had a crystal ball, I would be able to have a better answer for you.”

At a flood preparation meeting Thursday, several county and municipal officials discussed what steps they need to take in the event of another flood disaster. Close to 20 people, ranging from local emergency responders, county commissioners, to residents living on the river, were in attendance at the meeting.

Zeiger said he recently spoke with Wyoming National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) hydrologist Jim Fahey about the water levels in the North Platte River. Fahey told Zeiger that unless there was a change in weather, there would be brief flooding in Saratoga.

“He told me that if we don’t have any rain on snow event this year, he’s predicting, as things sit now, that we would potentially see, for about one week or 10 days, flood stage and above for Saratoga,” Zeiger said.

According to NOAA’s website, Flood Stage for the North Platte River in Saratoga is at 8.5 feet and above. As of May 6, the water level for the river sits at 6.72 feet, which is also the highest it has been this year.

Zeiger said he was confident the river would not see the same flows as 2010, but with the river, nobody can be certain.

“At this point, we are not going to see the flows that we saw in 2011, but strange things can happen,” Zeiger said. “In 2010, we were doing good until we got those two-and-a-half days of rain.”

Zeiger said the flooding heavily depends on the amount of rain the Platte Valley gets.

“We never really have a set pattern when the rain comes. History shows that we usually get a pretty decent rain event every five years,” Zeiger said. “In 2010 we had it, so we are potentially due for it. So if we get the rain on snow event, it could still change.”

Around 40 percent of the flooding on the North Platte River is impacted by streams and snowpack on the Colorado side of the border. The other 60 percent impacted by tributaries in Wyoming.

“The Brush Creek drainage [in Wyoming] does not look that bad this year,” Zeiger said. “On the Encampment side, they are concerned over there. There is heavy snow-pack over there.”

In the case of a flood, is Saratoga prepared? Zeiger said the town of Saratoga, along with several other towns in the county, have taken the appropriate steps to prepare for a flood.

“We were able to save some of the sandbags we had two years ago,” Zeiger said. “We are going to go ahead and refill some just so we have some available. We are not going to fill bunches of them and have them go to waste, but we are going to have some on hand. We may place them in specific locations so they are right there in troubled areas.”

Engineer for the town of Saratoga Chuck Bartlett said the town is planning to fill sandbags soon in preparation for the floods.

“Right now, we are planning on filling 1,000 to 2,000 sandbags and putting them on pallets so they are ready to go,” Bartlett said. “We will be having weekends where we will have as many volunteers as we can to fill sandbags.”

Bartlett also added many of the sandbags remaining from the last flood are still usable. However, the bags that have been exposed to the elements will likely need to be replaced.

This year, the Department of Homeland Security has required Incident Command System (ICS) teams to be located in all high flood threat areas. ICS provides towns with a chain of command in the event of a flood.

“They want to have a command structure in place for each community, so say if the governor needed to call in the [National] Guard to lend assistance, they know who we can contact,” Zeiger said.

NOAA predicts that the flood risk will be at its highest during the first part of June. Currently, they say Saratoga has a moderate to high potential of flooding due to snowmelt

At the state level, preparations are already taking place to prevent flooding in Saratoga. Governor Mead said in a interview last week “you can’t prepare after the disaster,” which is why his administration sent Homeland Security Director of Office Guy Cameron to Saratoga. Cameron said he has been traveling across the state to look at “potential trouble spots” for flooding.

“We are currently in the process of developing plans for deployments and potential deployments,” Cameron said.

Cameron said the Department of Homeland Security is working with local emergency response teams to prepare for “any kind of flood-fight.” He says there have been great efforts in Carbon County and Saratoga to prepare for flooding thus far.