Rescues Accelerate as Floodwater Inundates Colo.
By air and by land, the rescue of hundreds of Coloradoans stranded by
epic mountain flooding was accelerating as food and water supplies ran
low, while thousands more were driven from their homes on the plains as
debris-filled rivers became muddy seas inundating towns and farms miles
from the Rockies.
For the first time since the harrowing mountain floods began Wednesday,
Colorado got its first broad view of the devastation — and the reality
of what is becoming a long-term disaster is setting in. The flooding has
affected parts of a 4,500-square-mile area, almost the size of
Connecticut.
National Guard choppers were evacuating 295 people — plus pets — from
the mountain hamlet of Jamestown, which was isolated by flooding that
scoured the canyon the town sits in.
Mike Smith, incident commander at Boulder Municipal Airport, said
helicopters would continue flying in and out late into the night.
The outlook for anyone who'd rather stay is weeks without power, cellphone service, water or sewer.
"Essentially, what they were threatening us with is, 'If you stay here,
you may be here for a month,'" said 79-year-old Dean Hollenbaugh, who
was evacuated by Chinook helicopter from Jamestown, northwest of
Boulder.
For those awaiting an airlift, Guardsmen dropped food, water and other
supplies in Jamestown and other small towns in the winding, narrow
canyons that dot the Rocky Mountain foothills.
Thousands of evacuees sought shelter in cities that were nearly surrounded by raging rivers spilling over their banks.
One was Mary Hemme, 62, who displayed a pair of purple socks as she sat
outside the Lifebridge Christian Church in Longmont. They're a memento
of the more than 30 hours she spent in an elementary school in the
flood-stricken mountain town of Lyons. Many evacuees — eventually
rescued by National Guard trucks — got socks because most of them had
wet feet, Hemme said.
She recalled the sirens blared at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday.
"Mary we have to go, this place is flooding," she recalled her friend Kristen Vincent saying as they clambered out of a trailer.
"And we stepped out of the trailer, onto the ground where the cars were
parked, and it already like this, almost to our knees," she said. "It
wasn't just sitting there. It was rushing at us."
Soon the trailer, like others in the park where she was staying, was submerged.
Hemme said she walked up at hill a daybreak and surveyed the trailer park.
"The most terrifying thing was when I climbed up on that cliff and
looked down. It was the meanest, most — I mean, no wonder it carries
cars like toys," Hemme said. "I was so afraid that I was going to die,
that water came so fast."
The dayslong rush of water from higher ground has killed four people and
turned towns on Colorado's expansive eastern plains into muddy swamps.
Crews used inflatable boats to rescue families and pets from stranded
farmhouses. Some evacuees on horseback had to be escorted to safe
ground.
Boulder County officials said Friday night that the number of people
unaccounted for had risen to 172, according to local television and
newspaper reports. The officials said earlier that the unaccounted for
figure doesn't necessarily represent missing people.
"It means we haven't heard back from them," county spokesman James Burrus said.
Near Greeley, some 35 miles east of the foothills, broad swaths of
farmland had become lakes, and hundreds of roads were closed or damaged
by floodwaters. A 70-mile stretch of Interstate 25 was closed from
Denver to the Wyoming line.
Rocky Mountain National Park closed Friday, its visitors forced to leave
via the 60-mile Trail Ridge Road to the west side of the Rockies.
It will be weeks, if not months, before a semblance of normalcy returns
to Lyons, a gateway community to the park. The town, surrounded by
sandstone cliffs whose color was reflected in the raging St. Vrain
River, consisted of six islands Friday as residents barbecued their food
before it spoiled. Several people set up a tent camp on a hill.
Some 2,500 residents were being evacuated from Lyons, but Hilary Clark was left walking around her neighborhood Friday.
Two bridges that led into the area were washed away. Unlike other parts
of Lyons that had been reached by the National Guard in high clearance
trucks, no such help had arrived for Clark.
"We're surviving on what we got," she said. "Some of us have ponds in our backyard and we're using that water and boiling it."
Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said recovery would be long and
expensive — similar to wildfires the state is more familiar with.
"Please be patient. This is an unprecedented event," Pelle said.
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Neary reported from Longmont. Associated Press writers David Martin in
Boulder, Mead Gruver in Fort Collins, and Colleen Slevin and Thomas
Peipert in Denver contributed to this report.
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