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<br />e <br /> <br />e <br /> <br />e <br /> <br />. <br />,. <br /> <br />'It's a I ,ODD-year flood' <br /> <br />Page I of4 <br /> <br />~~~aln News Online <br /> <br />Bulletin Board <br /> <br />. Fort Collins Flood Archives' Fort Collins Flood Internet <br /> <br />'It's a 1 ,OOO-year flood' <br /> <br />Governor's stunned reaction echoes Colorado's reaction to Fort Collins' midnight <br />tragedy <br /> <br />By Joseph B. Verrengia <br /> <br />Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer <br /> <br />FORT COLLINS - Flood survivors wept for the dead and their ravaged homes Tuesday <br />in the wake of Colorado's deadliest storm in more than 20 years. <br /> <br />Five women died and 40 people were injured when an evening thunderstorm dumped a <br />record 8 to 12 inches of rain on Fort Collins and the northern foothills Monday night. <br /> <br />The waterlogged dregs of their belongings reminded residents Tuesday that the flood's <br />midnight fury was not just a nightmare. <br /> <br />Appliances, furniture, toys, and even bowling pins and sheet music were flushed down <br />submerged streets. Clothing was tangled in branches. Bridges washed out, stores and <br />streets were closed by mud and debris. <br /> <br />After tou'ring the stricken city on foot and by helicopter, a visibly shocked Gov. Roy <br />Romer demanded to know why a pair of vulnerable mobile home parks were allowed to <br />sprout on the floodplain of Spring Creek. <br /> <br />"It's not a I DO-year flood; it's a I ,ODD-year flood," a mud-splattered Romer said. He said <br />he will ask for federal disaster aid. <br /> <br />The storm turned the normally gurgling Spring Creek into a torrent of raging, chest-deep <br />rapids and transformed the South College and Johnson mobile home parks near <br />downtown into a hellish scene. <br /> <br />Flames billowed from broken gas lines and downed power lines spit sparks through the <br />drenching rain. The air stunk. <br /> <br />Rescuers frantically searched through more than 90 mobile homes until dark Tuesday, <br />wielding chain saws and clawing their way through uprooted trees in search of II people <br />unaccounted for. <br /> <br />In red spray paint, they recorded what they did or didn't find -- "Empty" ... "Live Cat." <br /> <br />"We don't believe at this point there is any possibility of survivors," Warren Jones, <br />battalion chief of the Poudre Fire Authority, said during an 8:30 p.m. briefing. <br /> <br />The Fort Collins flood -- nearly 21 years to the day after the Big Thompson Flood claimed <br />145 lives only 20 miles away -- was one of Colorado's worst natural disasters. <br /> <br />Thursday, July 31, 1997 <br /> <br />8:31 AM <br />