Colorado stunned by devastating flash floods

Will Pitner
Will Pitner is rescued by emergency workers, and neighbor Jeff Writer, left, after a night trapped sheltering outside on high ground above his home as it filled with water from a surge of water, after days of record rain and flooding, at the base of Boulder Canyon, Colo., Friday Sept. 13, 2013 in Boulder.
Brennan Linsley/ASSOCIATED PRESS

By P. SOLOMON BANDA and BEN NEARY
Associated Press

LYONS, Colo. (AP) -- 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.

• Click on slideshow link at right to see more photos from the Colorado floods

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.

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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.

Helicopters continued to fly in and out late into the night. National Guard truck convoys to rescue residents of the town of Lyons to the northeast resumed Saturday morning, with the airlifts expected to follow, Lt. Skye Robinson said.

The outlook for anyone who'd rather stay is weeks without power, cellphone service, water or sewer.

Longmont, Colo.
Homes in residential neighborhood in Longmont, Colo., are submerged as flooding continues to devastate the Front Range and thousands are forced to evacuate with an unconfirmed number of structures destroyed, Friday, Sept. 13, 2013. The dayslong rush of water from higher ground has killed four people and turned towns on Colorado's expansive eastern plains into muddy swamps.
John Wark/ASSOCIATED PRESS

"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 from mountain communities to downriver towns where the rivers were still swelling and spilling over their banks Saturday.

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.

Colorado Flooding
A University of Colorado student moves sand from a street where flood waters raged during the night on Friday, Sept. 13, 2013, in Boulder, Colo. Floodwaters cascaded downstream from the Colorado Rockies on Friday, spilling normally scenic mountain rivers and creeks over their banks and forcing thousands more evacuations in water-logged communities beset by days of steady rain.
Ed Andrieski/ASSOCIATED PRESS

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.

The city of Boulder reported late Friday that the rushing waters had caused "a significant breach in its main wastewater pipeline" to the treatment plant, but officials said it would not affect drinking water.

Near Greeley, some 35 miles east of the foothills, broad swaths of farmland had become lakes, and the raging South Platte and Poudre rivers led to rescues of stranded residents late into the night, the Greeley Tribune reported.

Hundreds of roads were closed or damaged by floodwaters, and a 70-mile stretch of Interstate 25 was closed from Denver to the Wyoming line.

Near Estes Park
This aerial photo shows a raging waterfall destroying a bridge along Highway 34 toward Estes Park, Colo. as flooding continues to devastate the Front Range and thousands are forced to evacuate with an unconfirmed number of structures destroyed Friday, Sept. 13, 2013.
Dennis Pierce/ASSOCIATED PRESS

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.

___

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.