The New York Times Lede Blog did a great job this weekend rounding up aerial footage of the Front Range from Rocky Mountain National Park to Boulder, hundreds of miles of red-water-soaked tragedy. The blog contains seven videos. It’s a moving collage of broken highways, overtaken bridges and crumpled homes. Authorities said they haven’t air-lifted this many people out of harm’s way since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. Surveying the damage by helicopter with lawmakers Saturday, Governor John Hickenlooper’s pilot landed to pick up six stranded residents in the disaster zone.
Authorities report that perhaps hundreds of people remain unaccounted for in a flood zone estimated to have reached the size of Connecticut.
The tragedies tied to the floods are great and small.
Taking the measure of roads and bridges and buildings in downtown Longmont, the men in the first video, shot by Payton H. Peterson, are horrified.
“Oh no, the brewery’s flooded,” says one of them, as they hover over Left Hand Brewery. “Oh god, look at the buildings over here.”
