EL PASO COUNTY, Colorado — The thunderstorms that doused Southern Colorado over the weekend caused flooding in many areas. However, a family in the Black Forest is worried their problems could get worse.
Their property is located across the street and downhill from a new housing development and they think the construction is impacting drainage.
Andrew Blurton recorded video of the flooding on his cell phone Sunday evening. The primary source of the extra was water was a culvert which runs beneath State Highway 83 carrying emptying drainage from the new Flying Horse North subdivision onto his property. There was still standing water near his children's vegetable gardens a day later.
"This is our little homestead where we raise our animals and grow our food," Blurton said, describing the damaged gardens.
While the water washed out months of work in the garden, he's worried things will soon worse.
"Another big rainstorm and it's going to start flooding down here an into my house, basically."
The Blurtons have lived here since 2013. Andrew said they didn't have flooding like this before the development began.
Classic Homes is building new acceleration and deceleration lanes on Highway 83 to help cars enter and leave the subdivision more safely.
Doug Stimple, the CEO of Classic Homes, told News 5 all of the required detention ponds and silt traps listed in their planning documents were built before work started.
What's more, he said they pride themselves on quality development. To the extent that they believe they're responsible for any damage, they'll pay for it.
Blurton said representatives from Classic met with his wife earlier in the day and that they may soon be building additional flood control structures.
"They had a meeting this morning and they came over and talked to my wife, and they said, we need to get some more rock up there, we need to do this and that," Blurton said. "Well, when is it going to happen. Because we're going to rain all this week."
Blurton attended many of the public meetings that were held during the plan approval process for Flying Horse North to voice his concerns about traffic and flood control. After this weekend, he feels like those concerns weren't given enough attention.
