“The morning of June 16 was most pleasant, but conditions changed rapidly shortly before noon. A tornado touched ground 15 miles south southeast of Denver about 1 p.m. Within the next hour, another unroofed 30 homes in the little town of Palmer Lake, 40 miles south of Denver. About 2 p.m., a dense mass of clouds descended and concealed the top of Dawson Butte, 7 miles southwest of Castle Rock; and the little light remaining faded until it was dark black and frightening, according to some people. A nearby rancher’s wife described the intense quiet as awesome, but the calm did not last very long. “The deluge began, not only near Dawson Butte, but also at Raspberry Mountain, 6 miles to the south, near Larkspur. The rain came down harder than any rain the local residents had ever seen, and the temperature dropped rapidly until it was cold. The quiet was shattered by the terrible roar of wind, rain, and rushing water. Then the thudding of huge boulders, the snapping and tearing of trees, and the grinding of cobbles and gravel increased the tumult. The small natural channels on the steep slopes could not carry the runoff; so water took shortcuts, following the line of least resistance. Creeks overflowed, roads became rivers, and fields became lakes—all in a matter of minutes. “The flow from glutted ravines and from fields and hillsides soon reached East and West Plum Creeks. The combined flow in these creeks have been described as awesome, fantastic, and unbelievable; yet none of these superlatives seem adequate to describe what actually occurred. Large waves, high velocities, crosscurrents, and eddies swept away trees, houses, bridges, automobiles, heavy construction equipment, and livestock. All sorts of debris and large volumes of sand and gravel were torn from the banks and beds of the streams and were dumped, caught, plastered, or buried along the channel and flood plains downstream. A local resident stated, ‘The banks of the creek disappeared as if the land was made of sugar.’ “The flood reached the South Platte River and the urban areas of Littleton, Englewood, and Denver about 8 p.m. Here the rampaging waters picked up house trailers, large butane storage tanks, lumber, and other flotsam and smashed them against bridges and structures near the river. Many of the partly plugged bridges could not withstand the added pressure and washed out. Other bridges held, but they forced water over approach fills, causing extensive erosion. The flood plains carried and stored much of the flood water, which inundated many homes, businesses, industries, railroad yards, highways, and streets.