Update on Colorado Flood from Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith, Let us continue to pray!

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Pastor Dewey Note: I have come to love Sheriff Justin Smith of Larimer County Colorado! What leadership he has brought the people of his county and surrounding area during this historic tragedy! The number of people unaccounted for in the Colorado floods has dwindled to six.

The Larimer County Sheriff’s Department said Monday rescuers over the weekend spoke in person or on the phone with 54 people previously considered missing.

Schulz says efforts are underway to locate the six people still unaccounted for. He says other people might be missing who haven’t been reported.

More than 1,200 people were listed as missing in the first days of the flooding. That number has dropped dramatically as communication and highway access has been restored.

The death toll remains at seven.

The flooding this month wreaked havoc across 17 counties and 2,000 square miles

Here is a posting from Sheriff Smith from his facebook:

What does the beginning of week 3 bring?

Week 1 (Wed to Sat) was pretty much organized chaos as we struggled to warn and rescue residents during thee flood event. We ordered up the necessary resources to meet the challenge.

Week 2 (Sun-Sat) was focused on assembling those resources and implementing the search and rescue plan. During that time around 1,200 survivors were evacuated and the numbers of unaccounted for went from the mid 400s down to 6. Additionally, untold structures were searched and the monumental task of road and utility recovery was begun.

Now, as we start our 3rd week of operations, there is another major shift. The type 2 Incident Management Team will be transitioning the operation back to our local management folks, going back down to a local type 3 team. That is scheduled to occur tomorrow. Along with that, the incident command post will roll back into our emergency operations center at the Sheriff’s Office and my staff will be working on determining longer term staffing plans since we will lose the guard assets for checkpoints and daily air operations, the USAR teams and the overhead team. We need to accomplish that without completely depleting the men and women of the LCSO and LC Search and Rescue.

My horse posse has been organizing plans over the weekend to get back into the canyon on horseback to patrol and to help us better scout the land to determine where owners can an can’t get to. We know the fall weather is here and if possible, owners need to winterize properties in the flood zones. We’ve also been working with the Boulder County officials to better sync our operations on the areas that essentially straddle the Larimer / Boulder County line. We know that in order for certain Larimer County residents to return, they have to get through Boulder County’s checkpoints. That is improving.

We are also working to assure that recovery efforts balance the need for speed with the need to consider the impact on residents of the affected areas. There will be some conflicts that were not anticipated or intended. As I committed to residents at the Friday meeting, as your Sheriff I will do my best to be your voice in this. The operations this week will transition more to the county managers’ office as we move to an operation that is much more focused on recovery than it is on rescue operations. However, the LCSO will continue to be a strong partner with the community as we all struggle to recover.

Let’s all continue to be Mountain Strong!

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