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<br /> <br />The first real alarm came about 8:45 p.m. when the patrolman from <br />Estes Park broadcast: <br /> <br />".....Advise them we have a flood. The whole mountainside is gone. <br />We have people trapped on the other side. I'm going to have <br />to move out. I'm up to my doors in water. Advise we can't <br />get to them. I'm going to get out of here before I drown." <br /> <br />He reached safety as did all other law enforcement officers who tried <br />to spread the word, except for the Colorado State Patrolman from Loveland. <br />He never reached Drake, his destination. His body was found later <br />several miles downstream. <br /> <br />The patrolman from Fort Collins reached Drake and began to warn campers <br />and residents: <br /> <br />"They looked at me like I was crazy, most of them," he <br />said. "I had to turn on my lights and siren and turn <br />back six or seven cars just about three-fourths of a <br />mile above Drake. <br /> <br />Then I came back to the town and turned on my loud-speaker <br />and told people to evacuate. The next thing I knew, the <br />water was up over the road. Campers were being washed away <br />and big propane tanks were coming downstream, spinning <br />like crazy, starting to explode. I don't think any of us <br />fully understood the magnitude of this until it was on top <br />of us." <br /> <br />Sheriff's deputies were doing the same. Some without bullhorns were <br />going door to door. <br /> <br />While many residents heeded the law enforecement officers' warnings and <br />fled to higher ground or tried to drive out of the Canyon, others stared <br />in disbelief and did nothing. Still others were openly defiant. <br /> <br />It was difficult for most people, particularly residents, to realize that <br />they weren't safe where they were. After all they had lived in the <br />Canyon "all their lives and had taken everything nature had given." <br /> <br />One such resident at Glen Comfort told the survey team that he had never <br />been able to understand how people faced with imminent danger and warned <br />that flood waters or hurricane surge were about to hit would disregard <br />the advice. "And yet when they came to the door warning us to get out. <br />I said 'Why? We've had hard rain before and we got through it'." He <br />added, "We just don't get those kind of storms and we felt that we had <br />no reason to leave our home." He wasntt surprised, either, that many <br />people made a fatal error of attempting to escape by automobile rather <br />than abandon their cars for immediate high ground. ''We've travelled <br /> <br />38 <br />