HYGIENE, Colo. — For weary Colorado flood evacuees, Monday’s clearing skies and receding waters revealed only more heartbreak: toppled houses, upended vehicles and a stinking layer of muck covering everything.

Rescuers grounded by weekend rains took advantage of the break in the weather to resume searches for people still stranded, with 21 helicopters fanning out over the mountainsides and the plains to drop supplies and airlift those who need help.

As many as eight people were believed to be dead, according to state officials, and hundreds were still missing. But that number has been decreasing. The state’s count fell Monday from just more than 1,200 to about half that. Officials hoped the number of missing would continue declining as rescuers continued working and those stranded got in touch with families.

“You’ve got to remember, a lot of these folks lost cellphones, landlines, the Internet four to five days ago,” Gov. John Hickenlooper said on NBC’s “Today” show.

“I am very hopeful that the vast majority of these people are safe and sound.”

Residents of Hygiene returned to their small community east of the foothills to find mud blanketing roads, garages, even the tops of fence posts.

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The raging St. Vrain River they fled three days earlier had left trucks in ditches and carried items as far as 2 miles downstream.

“My own slice of heaven, and it’s gone,” Bill Marquedt said after finding his home destroyed.

Residents immediately set to sweeping, shoveling and rinsing, but the task of rebuilding seemed overwhelming to some.

“What now? We don’t even know where to start,” Genevieve Marquez said.

“It’s not even like a day by day or a month thing. I want to think that far ahead but it’s a minute by minute thing at this point. And, I guess now it’s just help everyone out and try to get our lives back.”

In the mountain towns, major roads were washed away or covered by mud and rock slides. Hamlets such as Glen Haven were reduced to debris and key infrastructure such as gas lines and sewer systems were destroyed.

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Hundreds of homes around Estes Park, next to Rocky Mountain National Park, could be unreachable and uninhabitable for up to a year, town administrator Frank Lancaster said.

The town of Lyons was almost completely abandoned. Emergency crews gave the few remaining residents, mostly wandering Main Street looking for status updates, a final warning to leave Sunday.

Most of the town’s trailer parks were destroyed. One angry man was throwing his possessions one by one into the river rushing along one side of his trailer Sunday, watching the brown water carry them away while drinking a beer.

State emergency officials offered a first glimpse at the scope of the damage, with counties reporting about 19,000 homes either damaged or destroyed.

 


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