About Us

On Monday September 9th, Anna and I buried Bix Beiderbecke, the best dog we've ever known. He was just shy of his 7th birthday. The vet thought it was a heart condition. We buried him in the poppy bed in the front yard and just as I finished covering him over, a huge thunder and lightning storm began. It continued to rain. On Wednesday night at 11 p.m., a gulch on the north side of town let loose and the landslide killed our dear friend Joe Howlett. At that time we received a reverse 911 call urging us to move to higher ground. Anna and I moved to the upstairs of our new garage building.
The building was engineered for a 100 year flood so we thought we would be safe there. At 4 a.m., a friend called urging us to get out. The creek which normally would be 8-10 feet wide and about a foot and a half deep was now 6 feet deep and 20 feet wide swallowing up cars and propane tanks and homes in its path. We loaded up my van and crossed the bridge over lower Main Street, shortly before it washed out, and went up the hill to Heather and Cameron's house (Anna's sister and her husband) which sits directly behind our home but 50 feet higher than the creek.
We survived for three days drinking rain water and finishing up the food in the fridge so as not to leave anything that might draw bears. On Saturday afternoon, with both bridges out, the search and rescue squad moved us across the river with a zip line.
We were allowed time to check our property and home which was destroyed. The house was filled with 40" of sand in the back which sloped down to a foot of thick black mud in the front. The poppy bed where we buried Bix had washed away. Our garage building fared much better with limited damage. We made it up to an old mine site where we were evacuated by a Chinook helicopter to Boulder, the largest civilian evacuation by helicopters since Hurricane Katrina. Within days President Obama declared the front range of Colorado a federal disaster area.

Where we are now :
Our home was one of 19 destroyed in Jamestown, 49 others were damaged. We have spent 10 months working on cleanup and filling out paperwork to try and rebuild our lives. The house will be coming down in the next few weeks and foundation and framing will begin soon after that.
We continue to stay with Heather and Cameron while finishing an upstairs apartment in our garage which survived the deluge. My brother Steve's wife, Diane Campbell Payne, helped us with this blog to update everyone on our situation. Thank you for all your thoughts and support at this time.

Burt and Anna Payne
The best place to start is with the "before" photos from July, 2013, HERE and then the Flood photos from September, 2013 HERE.