PHIL WHITE Star-Tribune correspondent | Posted: Friday, June 6, 2008 12:00 am
LARAMIE - People were battening down the hatches again Thursday here as heavy rains flooded pastures and roads and added a wet new dimension to a New York sculptor's project along the Laramie River Greenbelt.
The National Weather Service warned that the Laramie River at the Curtis Street bridge could crest at about 4 inches above flood stage at 6 a.m. Saturday.
Mark Heuer of DayWeather in Cheyenne said 1.89 inches of rain had been recorded at the Laramie Regional Airport between 12:01 a.m. Wednesday and 3 p.m. Thursday. Heuer said both Cheyenne and Laramie's rainfall readings for June thus far were five to six times the average.
The rain, cold temperatures and strong winds Thursday afternoon added another chapter to Laramie's wild late-spring weather story for 2008. On May 23, tornadoes, high winds, rain and hail damaged numerous buildings and uprooted trees in the east and northeast parts of town.
Albany County Emergency Management Coordinator Randy Vickers said no flooding of houses or serious problems had been reported as of Thursday afternoon.
"The rain is accumulating, and it could turn into a problem if it continues," Vickers said. "These are mostly drainage issues."
He said the river was nearly a foot below flood stage Thursday afternoon. In 2005 the river rose to 6 inches above flood stage, causing some flooding of low-lying residential areas along the river on both sides of Interstate 80.
Heuer said the river warning was issued not only because of the rainfall, but also because of snowmelt in the mountains during warm days earlier in the week. Radar estimates indicated that 1 to 2 or more inches of rain may have fallen in the Snowy Range area Wednesday and Thursday, he said.
The rainfall has moved Laramie's total precipitation for the year to 6.12 inches, 33 percent above average, Heuer said. Cheyenne, with 5.63 inches so far this year, remains slightly below normal.
Runoff accumulation in a meadow along the southern end of the Laramie River Greenbelt in southwest Laramie Thursday was causing unexpected problems for Steven Siegel, a New York sculptor who is constructing one of several outdoor creations for the University of Wyoming Art Museum's "Sculpture: A Wyoming Invitational."
Artists from six states this summer will build or install 10 works at the university campus and at four other public sites in Laramie for the $300,000 project.
Siegel and Sterling Smith, a UW museum preparator, were looking for boots and rain gear Thursday as water engulfed most of Siegel's sinuous, cylindrical framework constructed of 2-by-4s. Siegel said the plan was to fill the framework with natural garden mulch to give it a reddish color, perhaps with some stripes.
"We hear that the water may rise another foot before it's done, so we don't know how we're going to proceed at this point," Siegel said.