Colorado Floods Death Toll Reduced to 6, With 306 Still Missing

Officials in Colorado reduced the death toll, from the floods, down to six, on Tuesday. They are listing three hundred and six as still unaccounted for. The number of missing continues to drop as communications are reestablished.

Thirty-four helicopters, nineteen from the Colorado National Guard, are assisting in search and rescue operations. Some twenty-four hundred people have already been rescued. Nine thousand more people were forced to evacuate from flooded areas.

The rains began on last Sunday, but finally let up on Monday. The worst of the rains came on Wednesday and Thursday, with massive flash floods. During that week, many areas received more than their normal yearly rain fall.

Seventeen counties have flooding and fifteen have been declared disaster areas as the flooding spreads downstream, to the east. Several towns remain completely cut off, surrounded by waters, and without potable water, cell coverage, or electricity. In at least one location, normally dry land is still under more than fourteen feet of water.

At least fifteen hundred homes have been destroyed, with eighteen thousand damaged. Most of the damaged ones had their basements flooded. Government officials are saying that it could be more than a year til everything is rebuilt.

Roads throughout the region are still under water, damaged, or completely destroyed. In some towns they have simply become secondary rivers. This makes travel in some areas dangerous to impossible. As many as seventy highway bridges and as much as fifteen hundred miles of road are damaged or destroyed. It will be months before all the roads can be repaired or replaced. The roadwork along will cost hundreds of millions of dollars. 

Colorado's oil fields have also been effected by the flooding. High waters have forced hundreds of wells to shut down. The economic impact from the lack of drilling will be felt down the road, just as much as the cost of repairs.