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Appendix B Newsletter INewspaper Articles GREELEY, COLORADO ARTICLE NO.3 Water all around Story By Lisa Martinez Posted on Sunday, July 15 @ 01:59:40 EDT (990 reads) Greeley and Evans residents spent Saturday cleaning up after Friday's storm that caused thousands of dollars in damage to homes, businesses. More than 100 people had to be evacuated from the Travelodge motel Friday night in Evans when more than 7 feet of water flooded the parking lot and basement. About a dozen motorists had to abandon cars that couldn't get out of the deep waters while the power went out inside. In Greeley, India's Taj Mahal Restaurant, 901 9th St., received heavy flood damage. Owner Ram Singh said 3 feet of water in his basement damaged about $6,000 worth of groceries stored there. "I lost my entire business," said Singh. "It was all Indian groceries; I can't just go out and buy more." Singh said he will continue with business as usual when he receives new supplies. Clogged drains at the Greeley-Evans School District 6 administration offices, 811 15th St., caused water to seep into the west side of the building and soak the carpets. "We're lucky we found it before too much water got in there," said District 6 spokeswoman Dollie Zamora. "We just set up fans to air out the carpets. It was very minimal damage." City Hall also flooded Friday. Crews worked overnight to salvage important records. Only small portions of articles were damaged and the oldest city records of hand-written minutes from the 1870s were left unscathed. Others weren't as lucky. On Friday, Travelodge manager Chris Lee was installing a new air conditioner system for the entire building when the rain fell. "We didn't even use it one day and look what happened," Lee said. "I just lost $20,000 on the air conditioner, and that's not including carpets, new boilers and pumping this water out." About $4,000 in food had to be destroyed, according to Ray Villejo, who owns the restaurant in the motel. "It could have been a lot worse," Villejo said. "If it would have been a little later, there would have been more people out here and more cars stuck." Estimates for total damage sustained to the motel and restaurant were unknown Saturday. Lee and Villejo said it would be a few days before the businesses would be back to normal. Timmy Benally, who had been staying at Travelodge since Monday, came home from work Friday to find cars stuck in a pool of water. He parked his truck across u.S. 85 and rushed back to the motel to check on his girlfriend and daughter. "Everyone had to evacuate the building, so I couldn't find them anywhere," said Benally, who later found them safe and sound in the undamaged portion on the west side of the building. "I'm glad my car wasn't there. This is the first time I've ever seen anything like this," he added. The couple and his daughter came to Greeley from New Mexico for Benally's temporary job. The roaming electrician stayed home from work Saturday to make sure his family would have a place to stay. Flooding was a common problem in the area. Victor Tallon, owner of Cornerstone Plumbing Inc. in Greeley, said he received 20 service calls for flooded basements Saturday, which is more than double the amount he usually gets on a typical weekend day. "People were trying to figure out why their basements were flooding," Tallon said. "When I went to take a look at them, I'm thinking to myself, 'this could have been preventable.' " Tallon said most of the homes he assessed Saturday had no sump pumps in the basements and drainage pipes outside the home weren't connected properly. "People pick up the pipe while mowing their T: \Projects\6844888 _ CWCS _Flood _ Doc_ Rpts\Su b _ 00\6.0 _Proj_ Deliv\Report\Append ix S.doc T: \Projects\6844888 _ CWCS _Flood _ Doc_ Rpts\Su b _ 00\6.0 _Proj_ Deliv\Report\Append ix S.doc