Flash flood drowns 60 holidaymakers

Press, 3 August 1976, Page 8

Flash flood drowns 60 holidaymakers

■ NZPA-Reuter Denver A flash flood surged through a twisting, narrow canyon of the Colorado Rocky Mountains on Sunday, drowning dozens of fishermen and week-end campers in a 10ft wall of water one survivor said resembled a tidal wave. The authorities said that at least 60 were killed, and 250 injured or stranded. “We have 43 bodies now in the mortuary,” said a Larimer County sheriff, Mr Bob Watson. “We know of 20 others that we haven’t been able to get to yet.” ■ The flood occurred along the Big Thompson River, 45 miles north-west of Denver in a popular camp-ground 10,000 ft high in the Rocky iMountains. The river hurled [houses from one side of the [canyon to the other, carved ! through a highway, and itossed cabins, cars, and trucks around like toys.

The rains resumed at dusk on Sunday, causing the river to rise again. National

guardsmen dropped in the area by helicopter carried food and blankets to survivors stranded overnight, and moved them to high ground. Officials hoped a dam at the headwaters of the river would prevent additional flooding. The flood was the nation’s worst since the Grand Teton dam in Idaho collapsed in June, and the death toll was the greatest since the Rapid City, South Dakota, flood of June 10, 1972, which killed 237 people.

“I don’t know how I made it,” said Mr Edwin Swann, who punched through a window of his truck and floated to safety on a rubber tyre. “It was the worst thing that ever happened in my life. I know what a tidal wave looks like. Thank God I’m alive.” The authorities said the flooding was triggered by six to 10 inches of rain on Saturday night an<) Sunday causing the river to crest at 10 to 15 feet, more than 10 feet above normal. A

metal water pipe 30 feet above the river was inundated and hurled through a home on the riverbank. The river canyon is 10 miles south of Estes Park. Colorado, a tourist resort area at the entrance to the sprawling Rocky Mountain National Park. The major force of the flood extended along a 12-15 mile twisting stretch of the river in the canyon forested with pine and aspen.

An estimated 2500 people were stranded in the canyon at one point on Saturday night and Sunday. The foundations of some riverbank motels catering for fishermen were undercut by water, and residents awaiting rescue clung to rattlesnakeinfested rocks.

Sewer pipes were snapped like twigs by the flood, and refuse poured into the river, forcing stranded survivors waiting for rescue to boil drinking water. Propane gas tanks ripped from recreational vehicles were exploded by logs floating in the river.