One person was killed and another seriously injured after a severe storm pummeled east Greeley with 2-inch hail and heavy rain Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, flooding homes and businesses and damaging vehicles.
Emergency crews from Greeley, Evans, Windsor and Platte Valley responded to dozens of calls during the night, rescuing people trapped by floodwaters in structures and vehicles during the storm, city spokeswoman Becca Vaclavik wrote in an email.
First responders answered 47 calls for people needing assistance because of the storm and 10 rescues, Vaclavik said.
Photos posted by the Greeley Fire Department on Facebook showed a firefighter wading through chest-deep water into a basement apartment to rescue a trapped resident. City staff reported floodwaters as high as 18 inches on some roads and used snowplows to remove the hail, Vaclavik said.
Vaclavik declined to release additional information about the person who died but confirmed the death and injury were both storm-related.
The Weld County Coroner’s Office did not have any cases of “obvious flood-related deaths” as of Wednesday night, said Chief Deputy Coroner Jolene Weiner.
City officials could not confirm the extent of the flooding or damage Wednesday, but 16th Street between U.S. 85 and Sixth Avenue remained closed throughout the day.
Greeley resident Juan Contreras Jr. waded through a mix of hail and water up to his thighs to get to his father’s house on Sixth Street on Tuesday night.
Contreras, 45, initially thought his 68-year-old father was exaggerating when he called his son on Tuesday, sounding panicked about water coming into the house.
But as he approached the house, floodwaters rose to the doors of Contreras’ pick-up and there was so much hail the surface of the water was white.
Water in the house was up to Contreras’ knees by the time he made it inside and called 911 to ask for help rescuing his father, who is disabled.
“He’s in his boxers, ready to go to bed and now there are shoes floating around his house,” Contreras said. “It looked like something out of a movie.”
Firefighters carried Juan Contreras Sr. out of the house and he’s now staying at his son’s apartment in west Greeley. His father’s insurance company said Wednesday that flood damage is not covered under his policy, and Contreras isn’t sure what to do next.
“I’ve never been in this kind of situation before,” he said. “I don’t know how people get out there and get help in the community.”
It sounded like someone was shooting a pellet gun at Greeley resident Jared Sughroue’s door when the hail started Tuesday night, and the ice initially blocked water from flooding into the house near 7th Avenue and 15th Street.
But that didn’t last long, and Sughroue’s basement flooded with 6 feet of water in the span of 30 minutes. He tried jumping into the hail-filled water to save some items, but the water was too cold.
“When I jumped in, my whole body went into shock and I couldn’t breathe,” Sughroue said.
The storm dumped nearly 4 inches of rain on northeast Greeley and 2 inches on the west side of the city, said Bernie Meier, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boulder.
City crews were still assessing damage on Wednesday and opened a temporary shelter at the Greeley Family FunPlex, located at 1501 65th Ave., where four people and two dogs were staying.
Both Contreras and Sughroue said storm drains are notoriously ineffective in east Greeley and often back up during storms, but nothing like what happened Wednesday.
City officials are aware of major flooding issues in the east Greeley and are working to fix it through a seven-phase capital construction project, the first phase of which wraps up this summer, Vaclavik said.
The first phase of the project includes “infrastructure, public art, river restoration and an extension of the Poudre Trail,” according to a project website.
Contreras’ father’s house also saw minor flooding after torrential rains in 2013.
“It’s taken over 10 years to get that taken care of,” he said. “I guess I’m disappointed in them.”
