I haven't lived there in quite a while, still have a house there that belonged to my mom, though.

 

Good Morning Wyoming.

Anthony its nice to see ya here in the wyoming chapter.

 

good morning Michelle. warming up in Chugwater yet?

 

Morning Michelle!

 

Good morning everyone, Anthony nice to see you here this fine morning. It is cold here at the ranch today in fact it was only within the last 20 minutes I thought I could turn on the computer. It was a nice 38 degree's in here around 4:30 and with no wind for a draft it took a while to get the house up and toasty again. If we keep this up I may have to put on the night shift keeping the stove going.

Other spots around here may have cold but for us here in Chugwater...............we have wind. You may find this incredable but several years ago we had a tornado come through here around 10 and night. The only damage it did was rip out the neighbors grain bit west of us across the fence and scatter it behind the house and all the way down to the interstate, around 4 miles. I could not tell the difference with that and some of the other winds we have had around here. That was also the reason we had no clue the twister was around before day light when we saw a major part of the grain bin right behind the house within a hundred yards.

 

Morning Orin, I've heard that there have been twisters out that way.

 

Good morning Pat, The summer of 80 was a bad year for them here as well as almost every few days there would be a cloud formation or twisters dancing around on a hill top west of us several miles. It became almost normal that year at least until the north end of Cheyenne on Buffalo Ridge and the National Guard Armery took a heavy beating from a big tornado that went through in an afternoon I think in August of that year. After that things settled down a bit.

The one I wrote about happened around Sept of 74. Pat how are things for tornado's in your part of the country. I have understood that some of Nebraska has quit a few problems with them at times.

 

We get our share here. We had one go through the south end of town, a small one, then another went just north of town, when we were in Estes Park last year, and the one north of here that went through the Boy Scout camp, that was bad. We're pretty much right in the middle of Tornado alley. In 1975, we had 5 tornados at once rip right through the center of Omaha. I was on a soccer field, about a mile east of one. Scared the bajeezus out of me!

 

We had a few early last summer. I was working in Laramie and did not listen to the warnings and tried to drive home on 1-80. I made it about half way to the Walmart on grand and the wind was blowing so hard I couldn't drive. I pulled over wildly and parked up tight against a building so the car wouldn't blow away. When it finally ended (about 10 minutes) I drove to the Happy Jack exit and tried to make it home on the back road. There was so much hail frozen into a sheet that I couldn't drive there either. Got turned around and cruised home at 35 on 1-80. Took about 3 hours all together to drive 45 miles.

 

The hail is always an added bonus. Luckily, I can just barely get the Black truck in the garage, but even with the nose against the back wall, six inches of it still stick out. So, I just open the tailgate to keep it from getting hit. I'm going to be in trouble when the wife gets a new vehicle someday, she's gonna want that garage back during storms!!

 

Had my share of tornadoes in Kansas, no thank you please keep them.

Did see one here right after we moved... June 2003 I think. No damage though.

 

I wondered of that wasn't so Pat. I can remember Omaha now that you mention it but not many details. We had a very rough summer that year with my granddad before he passed away that Sept.

An unknown trivia (I hope I hadn't wrote about this already) was the next year July 31, 1976 when the big flood went down through the Big Thompson canyon below Estes Park.
That storm from what can be figured split at Centennial Wyo. west of Laramie with the majority of it going down the Big Thompson but there was a smaller storm that broke off going north coming down Palmer Canyon west of Wheatland and south of Laramie Peak.
Our ranch was at the top of Palmer canyon on Lumen creek and that afternoon late it came in on us as well. I had been working out side that after noon when it become over cast then darkening and once when I looked up I saw clouds moving in from the west and clouds moving in from the east...may have been circling. It hailed shortly after that and the wind came up very suddenly and strong after which it began to rain. It was thought that we received around 7 inches in about 20 minutes as at one point you could not see out the windows past the water coming down. I remember feeling like being inside a dollhouse with some one pouring a tub of water over it.

Our ranch house was located on the inside of small creek bend aprox 300 ft away sitting on a 3 foot high foundation and still the water came up to within an inch of coming in the house through the front door. At the time I was so self centered about a new used 1966 F-100 4X4 I had bought just 2 weeks before, the first 4X4 I ever had was going to be washed out. At one point after the rain subsided I could see my truck half submerged in water with water boiling through the radiator and front grill from the engine compartment. When I could I got out through one of the north windows of the house wading to the truck found to my surprise that it still started. Most likely would have been just as well that it hadn't started because in my attempt to back up and out of there I backed off into a hole under water that had eroded in the road about 4 feet deep laying the pickup on it’s side.

That night in the dark with no communication with the outside world as we didn’t have a phone line up there in those days and the power lines were washed out in places up the canyon I listened to a transistor radio tuned into a Colorado radio station "KLZ” a then country station I listened to quite a bit learned that people were struggling for their lives, some had been lost they thought even then and at least one law enforcement officer had lost contact and could not be reached in the Big Thomson canyon.
I stayed up most of that night not sure what was going to happen in my part of the world yet but discovered that I was no longer worried about my pickup. As the days, weeks, and months after wards this would become a time in my life that I would never forget. I listened each day on my radio I took with me as I rebuilt roads and cleared off meadows of rocks and debris listening to how they would find more casualties in Colo.

No one was hurt on our side of this storm but it was written in our local paper the next week how our neighbors to the east of us in Palmer Canyon had been fortunate to have turned down taking dinner in Wheatland for coming home instead. Had they stopped they would have been coming home when the flood come ripping through. I would have to think that summer I discovered in a few short hours how the world could work and things that can happen in an instance without warning and the incredible power of nature and her will. I have never lost respect for that since.

They have had for the past several years a memorial service in the Big Thompson canyon to which I finally attended this past year.

 

Afternoon Scott, yeah, Kansas has a bulleye on it also. Can't remember the name of that town down there that got leveled a year or so ago. Nasty.

 

Orin, I have an aunt that lived in the mountains above Estes Park. She told us about the damage there, they went down to try and help the people there. There is a lot of info about that flood in Estes also. I remember seeing it on the news also. That was a terrible night for those people.

 

Hope I didn't get too heavy guy's just had a memory and started writing. Up to a few years ago I never spoke of this. I felt I had no right to talk about this when so many lost so much. When I attended the memorial service last summer to pay my respects I found that others were shocked to hear of how the storm spread like it did.