Rescues increase as floodwater inundates Colorado
By P. SOLOMON BANDA and BEN NEARY, Associated Press
Sep 14, 2013 11:40 AM CDT
Local resident Chris Rodes takes a break while helping salvage a friend's belongings after floods left homes and infrastructure in a shambles, in Lyons, Colo., Friday Sept. 13, 2013. Days of heavy rains and flash floods which washed out the town's bridges and destroyed the electrical and sanitation...   (Associated Press)

By air and by land, the rescue of hundreds of Coloradoans stranded by epic mountain flooding accelerated Saturday as debris-filled rivers became muddy seas that extended into towns and farms miles from the Rockies.

Helicopters and hundreds of National Guard troops searched miles of mountainous terrain for people as food and water supplies ran low in remote communities cut off since Thursday. Thousands were being driven from their homes in convoys.

For the first time since the harrowing floods began Wednesday, Colorado got its first broad view of the devastation. Floodwaters have affected parts of a 4,500-square-mile (11,655-square-kilometer) area.

Although the number of confirmed deaths stood at four, authorities feared more bodies could turn up in areas that remain inaccessible. More than 170 people remained unaccounted for in Boulder County, but that number could include people who are still stranded or who escaped but have not made contact yet, said Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle.

National Guard helicopters flew in and out of the mountain hamlet of Jamestown late into Friday night after the village became isolated by rushing water that scoured the canyon the town sits in. The choppers were evacuating nearly 300 people and their pets.

Rescuers were also concentrating on the town of Lyons, a gateway community to Rocky Mountain National Park, where the Guard had evacuated nearly 800 of the town's 2,500 residents by ground by Saturday morning.

More than a dozen helicopters were available to aid with rescue efforts.

"We have the ability to go whenever, wherever," Master Sgt. Cheresa Theiral said.

Still more rain was expected Saturday. And the outlook for anyone who preferred to stay behind was bleak: weeks without power, cellphone service or running water.

"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 helicopter from Jamestown, northwest of Boulder.

For those awaiting an airlift, Guardsmen dropped food, water and other supplies to residents of the winding, narrow canyons that cut through the Rocky Mountain foothills.

As the waters rose, thousands of people fled mountain and downriver towns, where 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.

Soon the trailer, like others in the park where she was staying, was submerged.

Hemme said she walked up a hill at 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 days-long rush of water from higher ground 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.

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 (56 kilometers) east of the foothills, broad swaths of farmland had become lakes, the Greeley Tribune reported.

Hundreds of roads were closed or damaged by floodwaters, and a 70-mile (113-kilometer) 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 (96-kilometer) Trail Ridge Road to the west side of the Rockies.

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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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