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<br />. <br /> <br />'It's a I,OOO-year flood' <br /> <br />Page 3 of 4 <br /> <br />- <br /> <br />"I know that creek well. It's a hell of a place to have a trailer park," said Romer, who lived <br />near th~ area while he attended college. <br /> <br />"There was no time for warning," Fort Collins Police Lt. Brad Hurst said. <br /> <br />By midday Tuesday, power was restored in most of the city. Phone problems persisted <br />because some main lines were submerged. <br /> <br />Rescuers using long search poles and trained dogs checked every pile of debris for bodies. <br /> <br />The five victims -- Cindy Schultz, Sarah Payne, Maria Rosemary Rodriguez and two <br />unidentified women -- were trapped beneath trailers or debris. <br /> <br />Authorities were checking the Poudre River as far east as Windsor for bodies that may <br />have been washed downstream. Divers will expand the search today. <br /> <br />"It's entirely possible that a body could have made it to Weld County," said Larimer <br />County coroner's investigator Doug Ken. <br /> <br />e <br /> <br />City Manager John Fischbach and others said they were shocked that what is typically a <br />five-foot wide creek could be so quickly transformed into a raging torrent. <br /> <br />The trailer parks had been a fixture on the west side of town for decades, but about half of <br />the homes had been removed in the last 10 years as the city improved the embankments <br />and drainage. <br /> <br />It was an extraordinary rain storm that caused the flash flood. <br /> <br />Assistant state climatologist Nolan Doesken went outside after 6 p.m., when the rain <br />started at his home on the city's outskirts. <br /> <br />His concern mounted as he realized the wann rain did not feel like the typical Colorado <br />summer storm, which is icy cold and often turns to hail. Wann summer storms are <br />unusually fierce. <br /> <br />"I told my children it could be a disaster in town," Doesken said. "The ground on the west <br />side of town was already saturated... and the impacts often are worse when they're in a <br />combination. " <br /> <br />Doesken's official weather station at CSU was swamped by 5.31 inches of rain between 6 <br />p.m. and midnight Monday -- the most precipitation in a six-hour period in the station's <br />108-year history. <br /> <br />By the>end of his tour, Romer questioned whether the city's engineering measures on <br />Spring Creek were a futile effort to prevent the inevitable. <br /> <br />"It would be better to not have a trailer court in this location," he said. "When you deal <br />with Mother Nature it is going to get you." <br /> <br />e <br /> <br />Wednesday, July 30,1997 <br /> <br />Thursday, July 31,1997 <br /> <br />8:31 AM <br />