“Biblical” rains trigger flooding that kills 3 in Colorado

State bracing for more rains, flooding through weekend

Officials investigate the scene of a road collapse at Highway 287 and Dillon on Sept. 12 at the Broomfield/Lafayette border in Colorado.(Photo: Cliff Grassmick, Daily Camera, via AP)

1:34 a.m. EDT September 13, 2013

SOURCE – BOULDER, Colo. — Massive flash flooding along Colorado’s picturesque Front Range mountains, triggered by what the National Weather Service termed “biblical rainfall amounts,” killed at least three people Thursday, cut off small towns and forced countless residents to scramble for high ground.

Boulder, home to the University of Colorado, was among the hardest hit by the devastating waters. Classes were canceled, hundreds of students evacuated and a quarter of the campus buildings damaged by rising water, authorities said.

“This is not an ordinary day. It is not an ordinary disaster,” Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said, describing walls of water as high as 20 feet that tore down mountainsides and canyons already scarred and denuded from wildfires.

“All the preparation in the world … can’t put people up those canyons while these walls of water are coming down,” he said.

1 dead after Colo. mudslide, flash flooding

Kelsey McKiel watches as Camp Creek, normally a small stream, races with soot and mud down after a flash flood from the Waldo Canyon Fire burn scar swept through Manitou Springs, Colo. on Friday. / Bryan Oller, AP

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At least one person is dead in Manitou Springs, Colo., after a mudslide and flash flooding Friday night caused massive damage in an area burned by the Waldo Canyon wildfire last year.

The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office confirmed a man’s body was found in flash flooding debris along U.S. 24 on Friday, KUSA reported. The body was not found inside a vehicle, and the identity of the victim is not yet known as no form of identification was with the body.

At least three others were injured as violent floodwaters swept through much of the town, lifting homes from their foundations, littering the streets with debris and pushing vehicles off the highway, The Gazette reported.

The mudslide closed U.S. 24 between Cascade and Manitou Springs, located west of Colorado Springs. The highway has been partially reopened. Flooding also closed part of U.S. 50.

“It’s just absolute chaos,” Elissa Hokenstad, assistant manager of the Manitou Springs Arcade, told the Gazette.

“We always have to keep it in the back of our minds, but I didn’t think it would happen tonight,” said Hokenstad, who spent the evening with employees mopping mud from the game room floors and pumping water from flooded basements.

Michael Cercone told the Gazette that he saw a home get swept away in the flood waters.

“I never expected like a home to wash down the street, not at all,” Cercone said.

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Transgender 6-year-old wins civil rights case to use girls’ bathroom

With her face reflected in a mirror, Coy Mathis, left, a transgender girl, plays with her sister, Auri, 2, center, at their home in Fountain, Colo., on Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. Coy’s parents are suing the Fountain-Fort Carson School District 8 after she was denied access to a girl’s bathroom at her elementary school.    Brennan Linsley / AP file

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By Andrew Rafferty, Staff Writer, NBC News

A transgender 6-year-old who identifies as a female should be allowed to use the girls’ bathroom at her elementary school even though she was born a male, the Colorado Civil Rights Division ruled on Sunday.

In a decision being hailed as a major victory by advocates for transgender Americans, the division concluded that the Fountain-Fort Carson School District created an unnecessarily hostile situation for Coy Mathis when it made the female bathroom off limits.

Two Dead, at Least 360 Homes Destroyed by Raging Wildfire

A garage along Herring road is fully involved during the Black Forest Fire northeast of Colorado Springs, Colo. on June 11, 2013. (Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post/Getty Images)

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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A voracious wildfire driven in all directions by shifting winds has killed two people and destroyed at least 360 homes — a number that was likely to climb as the most destructive blaze in Colorado history burned for a third day through miles of tinder-dry woods, a sheriff said Thursday.

The destruction northeast of Colorado Springs has surpassed last June’s Waldo Canyon fire, which burned 347 homes, killed two people and caused $353 million in insurance claims just 15 miles to the southwest. The heavy losses were blamed in part on explosive population growth in areas with historically high fire risk.

Colorado Wildfires Force Thousands From Homes

Dramatic aerial footage shows the raging wildfires that have sparked the evacuation of thousands of homes in Colorado.

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At least four major wildfires have broken out along the front of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, burning up to 60 houses and chasing people from thousands more homes.

Thick smoke plumes visible for miles billowed from fires near Colorado Springs, in southern Colorado, and in Rocky Mountain National Park to the north.

A wildfire in a residential area northeast of Colorado Springs forced mandatory evacuations of 2,530 homes, including some worth more than $1 million.