It only rained for roughly an hour on Thursday afternoon, but that was enough time to flood some streets, knock down some trees and leave the Redlands and other areas in the dark for a few hours.
From 4-5 p.m., 1.07 inches of rain fell in the Grand Junction area, according to Grand Junction National Weather Service (NWS) Observing Program Leader John Kyle. That set a new local rainfall record for the date, breaking the previous June 20 mark of 0.42 inches. The NWS measured 0.41 inches of rainfall in that span near the Colorado National Monument.
Hail was also pummeled some areas, with 0.75-inch hail pellets breaking some of the skylights at the Rimrock Avenue Walmart around 4:14 p.m., forcing th store to close for a period of time.
Not all of the Grand Valley was affected by the storm, as Fruita, Clifton and Palisade residents only experienced some light rain and wind gusts. For Grand Junction and the Redlands, however, it was an afternoon of stunning rain, hail and wind.
The storm knocked over a giant a tree at the corner of 12th Street and Patterson Road, blocking the 12th Street lanes heading south until city crews were able to remove it and clear the roads around 6:30 p.m. There were no injuries.
The storm knocked the power out for most of the Redlands area for about three and a half hours Thursday. An employee for Safeway at 2512 Broadway confirmed to The Daily Sentinel that the grocery store was impacted by the outage, and many homes in the area were left powerless until roughly 7:30 p.m.
HOW THE CITY RESPONDED
From 3:45-6 p.m., Grand Junction Police Department dispatchers fielded 333 calls, with 114 incidents resulting from the weather such as power outages, fallen trees and road closures.
The GJPD collaborated with city maintenance crews, energy and public works teams, first responders with the Grand Junction Fire Department, officers with the Colorado State Patrol and the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office, Grand Junction 911 and community members to respond to community needs amidst and after the storm.
“It was all hands on deck. We had officers from the Grand Junction Police Department responding to various calls and directing traffic, blocking traffic as first responders and city maintenance crews and public works and energy teams came out and addressed the issues of rocks and debris and flooding until power was restored and things were back up,” said GJPD spokeswoman Kelly Clingman.
Everything was about safety during and after the storm.
“Our first priority is the safety of the community. It was really great to come together yesterday with members of the community, far and wide, to help keep our community safe and help the residents within our city,” she said.
The GJPD and city crews handled the bulk of the work. Fire Department spokesman Dirk Clingman said there were no downed power lines that endangered lives, and Mesa County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Wendy Likes said they didn’t encounter any issues in unincorporated Mesa County beyond some “minor flooding” in the Redlands.
WHY SOME ROADS FLOODED
Grand Junction Deputy Director of General Services Jerod Timothy said the city was caught off guard by the storm’s intensity. The city’s storm water drainage system was clean and unclogged ahead of the storm, Timothy said, but the sheer volume of rain, as well as the hail, still created flooding situations, such as large ponds of water covering the road at 2515 Riverside Parkway near River City Sportplex on Thursday afternoon.
Rain volume was a big problem, but the hail made it worse.
“We had boots on the ground right away. It really inundated our storm water infrastructure. The hail played a really significant role in some of that backing up of the water in the lower downtown area where we’ve seen the leaves and debris show up there. That’s caused the surface inlets, those grates and frames, to get leaves and branches and debris and anything blowing around that inhibits water from entering the storm water system,” Timothy said.
“It took a little while, but everything drained out. Our crews do preventative maintenance on all of our storm water infrastructure, they routinely clean out those inlets, they clean the pipes to make sure everything is operating properly. Everything was ready for a storm.”
Timothy said the city had crews out clearing grates and frames, cleaning debris off the roads and clearing the roads in the northern area of town well into Thursday evening.
There was also some substantial tree damage at the Bookcliff Country club golf course.
HOW MUCH DANGER DO TREES POSE?
City Forester Rob Davis confirmed that, beyond the downed tree at 12th and Patterson, there were other felled trees regionally, but he said most of the tree damage was downed limbs and foliage damage.
The city had two crews out early Friday cleaning up debris and scouting for precarious limbs and branches that could pose risks in a follow-up storm, such as the rainfall the Grand Valley continued to receive Friday.
“Any time these storms happen, it’ll generate a little bit of tree fear. People kind of become nervous about tree risk in general,” Davis said. “I think it’s important for people to recognize how many trees are able to withstand that kind of force of nature. Don’t let one storm that goes through generate unnecessary fear of all these trees or make you think all these trees are dangerous or have risk. They’re pretty impressive in how they can withstand a big weather event like we had (Thursday) afternoon.”
