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<br />e <br /> <br />e <br /> <br />e <br /> <br />;...... <br />'It's a I ,OOO-year flood' <br /> <br />Page 2 of4 <br /> <br />Authorities are still tallying damages in the Larimer County town of 108,000, but <br />Colorado State University estimated its damages at $50 million. <br /> <br />The Red Cross reported 295 houses, mobile homes and apartments were either destroyed <br />or damaged. <br /> <br />By late Tuesday, about 170 survivors had sought refuge at a shelter in the cafeteria of <br />Rocky Mountain High School that could hold only 75 cots. The Red Cross said it served <br />500 meals. <br /> <br />Four senior citizens were kept overnight at Pouclre Valley Hospital for treatment of chest <br />pains and exposure. A 4-year-old girl was in fair condition with pneumonia. <br /> <br />Many had emerged from the disaster barefoot and wrapped in shredded bedclothes. Their <br />remaining possessions might have been a bathrobe or a baseball cap. <br /> <br />"I've never seen anything like it," said firefighter Pieter Angelo. "One woman was yelling <br />that her babies were in a tree." <br /> <br />Trees provided anchors for many trailer park residents. Eddie Mathews tied himself to a <br />tree with a sweatshirt to keep from being swept away. For 90 minutes, he inched up the <br />trunk as water lapped at his feet. <br /> <br />First he watched the flood claim his Chevrolet and a motorcycle. Then his mobile home <br />exploded and burned. A neighbor's trailer rammed his home like a shipwreck. <br /> <br />When he glimpsed a large object float past him, he grabbed for it. But it was too slippery <br />and mo~ing too fast. As it rushed downstream, he realized it was a woman's body. <br /> <br />"The hJdest part was hearing people holler for help and you couldn't help them," <br />Matthews said. "It's pretty devastating, the whole ordeal." <br /> <br />He was rescued after firefighters trying to save his trailer nearly knocked him out of the <br />tree with a blast of water. They pulled him down into a rubber raft, but it was punctured <br />by debris and they all wound up in the flood again. <br /> <br />"They had to pull me out with ropes," he said. <br /> <br />Officials gave this account of how the flash flood occurred: <br /> <br />Record rains fell on ground saturated by a storm on Sunday. Water rose against the <br />embankment of a railroad grade behind the trailer parks, quickly backing up after debris <br />clogged drainage culverts beneath the tracks. <br /> <br />A muddy wave surged over the embankment about II p.m., carrying away four freight <br />cars. <br /> <br />The wave quickly grew into a wall of water two stories high as it raced downhill to the <br />floodplain, crashing through the darkened trailer parks as people slept. <br /> <br />As many as 90 of the homes were tossed and tumbled like blocks. Some cars and pickups <br />were stacked three high. <br /> <br />Thursday, July 31, 1997 <br /> <br />8:31 AM <br />