Flash Flood Kills 5, Injures 40 in Colorado; 10 Remain Missing

FORT COLLINS, Colo. —  Rescuers probed stream banks and the twisted remains of mobile homes late Tuesday in a desperate search for 10 people missing after a flash flood roared through town the night before, killing at least five women.

Forty people were injured in the flood, which came amid a summer storm that unleashed 11 inches of rain in a matter of hours. Water building up behind a 15-foot railroad embankment broke loose, washing a freight train off the tracks and sweeping through two trailer parks.

Authorities believe that the victims never suspected the danger along Spring Creek, which at this time of year is normally five feet wide and a few feet deep.

“Most times, you can step over Spring Creek. Last night, we had what literally looked like the Snake River flowing through Fort Collins,” said Firefighter Tim England.

After surveying the damage from the air in a National Guard helicopter, Gov. Roy Romer, a former resident of this city, said, “I know that creek well. It just catches your breath to see that amount of damage in the center of the city.”

The city of 108,000 about 60 miles north of Denver has suffered millions of dollars in damage, authorities estimated.

Damage at Colorado State University alone could reach $40 million, state officials said.

Searchers used flashlights, crowbars and avalanche poles to look for bodies amid a chaotic jumble of trailers, vehicles and debris stacked up beneath bridges.

“What we’re looking for is softer than a tire, and doesn’t feel like mud or a rock,” said search-and-rescue team member Julie Rasmussen, who poked through garbage along stream banks. “We then mark the spot with red tape, and call in diver teams to finish the job.”

For James Carroll, the trouble started during heavy rains about 10:30 p.m. Monday when he noticed muddy water seeping under the front door of his trailer home near the Colorado State University campus.

Fifteen minutes later, his trailer was ripped off its foundations and sent bobbing downstream, along with his car and front porch.

Then, he said, “it really got insane.”

From inside the trailer he heard the sounds of metal and wood crushing under the force of the water blended with the screams of neighbors stranded on rooftops, even in trees.

Firefighters in rubber boats shouted back at them to “hang tight until we get there” as natural gas bubbled up from broken mains and fires raged in the distance.

“I opened the backdoor and saw that my trailer was wedged against a tree,” he said. “I looked up and saw a guy in that tree. I leaped onto the tree too. Then I clung to the limbs for 1 1/2 hours, breathing intense natural gas fumes the whole time.”

Carroll, a 31-year-old dietary supervisor at a local nursing home, eventually was helped down by a county rescue team that arrived in a dinghy.

Neighbor Trishaq Mehl, 27, and her two young children were rescued from a trailer rooftop.

“By the time they came to get us in boats, the water was swirling a foot from the roof,” she said, trembling at the memory. “We heard the popping of electrical fires and people screaming--not saying anything--just screaming.”

They were among the lucky ones.

Five women died in the flood, said police spokeswoman Rita Davis. Three were found trapped between a trailer park and a bridge about 100 yards away. A fourth was found two miles downstream. A fifth was later found buried in debris near the trailer park.

After the water breached the railroad embankment, it swept everything in its path, including trailers, vehicles, trees and furniture, into an overpass downstream. The water, blocked in its headlong rush, then roared backward into the trailer parks in a 20-foot-high wave.

Many elderly residents were injured. All of them were treated at Poudre Valley Hospital for broken bones, cuts, hypothermia and chest pains, hospital officials said.

Rescuers went through 90 trailers one by one, prying them open and spray-painting on them what was found as the stench of receding waters filled the air. Authorities were assuming that anything that could hold or hide a person did, until they determined otherwise.

Surveying the damage at the trailer parks, Fort Collins Police Lt. Brad Hurst said, “All of the bodies we’ve found so far were swept downstream from here or a little to the west.

“And, amazingly, most of this damage happened in just a few minutes,” he said.

An American Red Cross emergency center was set up at a local high school for about 120 families left homeless by the flooding. People there gathered around a list of missing persons pinned on a wall.

“Pretty strange. My name is number 34,” said Carroll, the dietary supervisor. “I’ll have to ask someone to take it off the list.”

Fort Collins Mayor Ann Azari pointed out that the city has won awards for its storm drainage systems.

“Spring Creek has been contained for years by drainage ponds, diversions and open space--except for last night, when the water took control,” Azari said, shaking her head. “It’s the irony of life in the West: Water can be managed for a while, not forever.”

The disaster struck only a few days before the 21st anniversary of the Big Thompson flood--also spawned by heavy rains--that sent a wall of water down a canyon west of nearby Loveland, killing 145 people and destroying hundreds of homes.