Colorado State Programs & People

University History - 1997 Flood

Bureaucratic and Fiscal Hurdles

Published July 2007

Summer school resumed on July 30. Where necessary, classes were reassigned to different buildings, and students were able to complete the remaining days of the session. Remarkably, within a week the University was also able to host a conference involving 5,000 visitors.

Photo of water outside of LSC near bicycles

Water continues to swirl outside of the Lory Student Center.

Although the variety of problems seemed endless and often complex, the institution responded effectively, despite inevitable bureaucratic and fiscal challenges. CSU qualified for disaster relief funds, but this meant satisfying the often frustrating procedures of the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA). Gerry Bomotti explained:

" FEMA has their own rulebook and regulations that [are] mostly inconsistent with any other regulations and insurance companies . . . And so, one of the early problems we faced, and we faced it through the entire recovery, basically, was that for record keeping, reporting, and everything else, what would work for the state wouldn’t work for insurance; and neither of those would work for FEMA. So, we basically had to keep three different sets of total records for everything we did. Certainly a complicating factor for the whole recovery."

Money to cover massive damages

A related issue was insurance coverage. Would there be enough money to cover the massive damages that CSU had incurred? In addition to various individual policies guaranteed by FEMA, State of Colorado insurance provided a maximum of $250 million worth of coverage for the entire state with maximum per incident coverage for floods of $25 million — an amount far below CSU’s needs.

"Flood" vs. "Sheet Flow Event"

After some spirited legal negotiating, it was ultimately decided that the University had not experienced a flood, but rather a "sheet flow event."

After some spirited legal negotiating, it was ultimately decided that the University had not experienced a flood, but rather a "sheet flow event," where water movement vastly exceeds normal pathways and essentially forms a sheet that inundates everything in its way. Eschewing hydrological definitions, however, Bomotti humorously offered a more realistic distinction: "the difference between . . . a flood and a sheet flow event . . . is $225 million, the difference between $25 million and $250 million worth of coverage."

The goal of starting fall semester classes on August 25 as originally scheduled required outside expertise, money and repairs to the most essential buildings.

More about the flood

Historical accounts in this series of articles, were compiled and edited from Democracy's University - A History of Colorado State University 1970-2003, written by James E. Hansen II (University Press of Colorado, 2007).

To order a book, call (970) 491-6198, e-mail Resource.Center@ucm.colostate.edu or visit 115 General Services Building on Colorado State’s main campus. Cost is $27, not including tax or shipping. The books are also available at the CSU Bookstore in the Lory Student Center.