Bridge back home for Lyons resident finally finished

March 10--There was champagne, there were cookies, but most of all there was gratitude.

Recovery from the September 2013 flood continues in Boulder County, and in contrast to the sudden wave of destruction it delivered, many of the repairs are being completed at a trickle.

But each step in the recovery process is nevertheless being hailed by those affected, and on Friday it was Marilyn Sims' turn to celebrate.

Half a million dollars in grant money secured by the Boulder County Transportation Department have produced a completed replacement personal access bridge across the North St. Vrain River linking five dwellings -- all owned by Sims or her sons -- to North St. Vrain Drive, just outside Lyons.

A celebration of the bridge's completion was held Friday.

"I know it took a long time, and we actually signed the contract, I believe, in June 2016 for the engineering of it," said Sims, 84. It was her husband who built the bridge destroyed by the flood, and she can now return full-time to her home that was built by her grandfather, a Nebraska wheat farmer.

"But I'm very grateful to have a very nice, sturdy bridge, and not be in debt for the rest of our lives," she said.

Sims has been back to her Lyons-area residence only sporadically since the flood. Because she now depends on supplemental oxygen, she is not able to use a makeshift foot bridge her sons jerry-rigged across the river. On the occasions that she has visited, one of her sons would drive through the river in a pickup truck.

For the most part, Sims has been living at a friend's home in the Devil's Thumb neighborhood of Boulder.

"I'm going to miss my friend that I have been staying with, because now we're both going to be alone in the evenings, not able to share the TV and soap opera about (President Donald) Trump," she said.

More than $8.7 million to county

The $500,000 toward the bridge replacement was secured through Community Development Block Grant -- Disaster Relief funds coming from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

A small additional amount was covered by Sims' family, who utilized an online fundraising tool to help pay for the repair. Sims' cardiologist was among the contributors to that effort.

"It's nice to be able to deliver some good news," said Kate Williams, flood recovery project manager for the county's transportation department.

Williams said the county's CDBG-DR money came in three rounds of funding that totaled $8,752,867, the final round of just over $2.3 million having come through only in recent weeks.

She explained that the process has carried on as long as it has because Boulder County's "home access" program was the first of its kind in the nation to be recognized through the HUD grant program.

Citing post-disaster relief efforts in locations such as Louisiana, New Jersey and New York in recent years, Williams said, "They hadn't run into a situation where they needed to give small private grants to folks to build private bridges. That hadn't come up before."

Once such situations were recognized as eligible by HUD, Williams said, it was still a separate process to persuade the federal government that the money should be delivered in the form of grants, rather than loans.

Williams said 29 different private access repair projects in the county have been funded through those funds, affecting 40 separate households. Of those, eight -- including the Sims property -- have now been completed, six are in easement negotiations and the rest are in the engineering phase of the process.

Blessing from catastrophe

Sims said during the time that she was displaced from her home, a man she didn't know from the nearby Pinewood subdivision had been watching the slow-motion replacement of her bridge on repeated drives past it and stopped by one day with two bottles of champagne.

That bubbly helped fuel Friday's festivities.

"I was calling it a christening, but, that's not right, because I don't want to break them. I just want to share it with all these people," Sims said.

She is looking forward to being home to stay this coming week, 3 1/2 years after the flood that ravaged Boulder County and much of the Front Range. One reason is that Sims will again be able to realize revenue from a rental apartment that is above her garage.

Sims is also happy about a return to the simpler benefits and pleasures of home.

"I'll be back in time to see the flowers and everything again, and do some yard work," Sims said.

Sims expressed her thanks to everyone in Boulder County government who has worked to get her back home.

"I told them it's like a lot of catastrophes that happen in life," she said. "There are blessings that come from it. These people have been so great. And I never would have known them, if not for this situation."

Charlie Brennan: 303-473-1327, brennanc@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/chasbrennan

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