Had the chlorine tank ruptured an even more horrific catastrophe would have ensued, making flood rescue efforts of mobile home residents next to impossible. The lives of thousands of inhabitants downwind would have been threatened by the poisonous gas. On this night, however, the hazards were primarily the power of water punctuated by explosions and fires from broken natural gas pipes. In the weeks that follow the community struggles to recover from the disaster. An expert on grief is concerned by how deeply people have been impacted by the event.
Insurance covers some of the costs of the damages, taxpayers the rest.
Significantly, the lives lost and most of the property damage occurs outside the areas officially designated by FEMA as regulatory floodplains. The town in the above scenario is, of course, Fort Collins. The college is Colorado State University. The flood was the Spring Creek flood of July 28, 1998. Had the storm stalled fifty or sixty miles further south, the community could have been Boulder, the college the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the flooded creek Boulder Creek or one of its tributaries.