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<br />r> ~ <br /> <br /> <br />Denver The Denver Post: July 9,2006 -Page 1a <br />Circulation: 306,000 daily, 801,000 Sunday <br /> <br />Mom"", Staver I Speci.lt" The Oeover Post <br /> <br />Tomasz Heczko was climbing with a friend Saturday when a boulder crushed his car along U.S, 6 in Jefferson County. Heavy rains destroyed <br />buildings. ruined roads and shifted the landscape, especially at the site Qf the 2002 Hayman fire, where there is little vegetation to slow runoff. <br /> <br />Creeks rise, mountainsides fall <br /> <br />Rain that feU at nearly 2 inchcs.an hour in places <br />destroyed buildings. devastated highways and <br />caused massive mud, tree and boulder slides this <br />weekend. <br />Horse Creek, a stream that normally is a few <br />feet deep, became a raging torrent 2S to 30 feet <br />deeP and 300 feet wide Friday night and caused se. <br />vere damage to Colorado 67 between Westcreek <br />and Deckers, said Jamie Moore, Douglas. County <br />emergency management director. <br />The floodwaters caused significant damage to <br /> <br />three buildings and frightened area residents who <br />awoke Saturday morning to the sound ofbouldctG <br />the size of cars being tossed down the swollen <br />stream. <br />"It freaked me out," said Jennifer Ratliff, 28, who <br />was staying in a cabin near the flood area. <br />She said boulders were banging down the creek, <br />which had risen so high that she could see <br />white-water waves' rolling downstream and huge <br />trees floating like twigs. <br />In Westereek, one cabin had water halfway up <br />the living room windows, and dead trout, logs and <br />other debris littered the interior. <br />Torrential rains in the past week have saturated <br /> <br />the ground in a number ofFrnnt Range locations, <br />primarily in southern Jefferson County ~nd Dou. <br />glas County, according to Kyle Fredin, a meteorol. <br />agist with the National Weather Service, <br />As of 7 a.m. Saturday. the latest time for which <br />figures were available, the storm had dumped I.) <br />inches of rain on south Lakewood, uS inches in <br />Conifer and nearly 2 inches in Deckers. <br />Areas farther south also have received signifi- <br />cant rainfall, A storm Monday washed out Colo- <br />rado uS south of Penro se. <br />As Ofl0;30 p.m. Saturday. Horse Creek was ris- <br /> <br />By Howard Pankratz and Kirk Mitchell <br />Denver Post StajfWritcrs <br /> <br />>See FLOODS on I9A <br />