Record amounts of rainfall aren’t required to produce flooding. In many cases, it is the rate at which the precipitation falls rather than the total amount that creates the problem. On May 29, 1997 a rainstorm dumped 1.66 inches of rain over a 45-minute time span in Dodge City. The flash flood caught a young boy in the drainage ditch in the 13 hundred block of 10th Avenue. He floated down to West Park Street before he was pulled out by Ford County and Dodge City firefighters. Besides the swift water rescue, four cars and a truck got tangled up together at the mouth of the drainage located at the corner of Third avenue and Vine Street – evidence of the power of fast moving water.
Mary Knapp, Weather Data Library
mknapp@ksu.edu