Storm cleanup, recovery continue in El Paso and Teller counties

Residents of El Paso and Teller counties are hoping for a break from a week of stormy weather to clean up and recover from the damage left behind.

The small community of Green Mountain Falls was hit by flash flooding twice this week, leaving many roads buried in sediment and many homes damaged.
“We have two people in our public works department,” said Jason Wells, the town manager. “We requested help from El Paso County and Colorado Springs Utilities. We’re trying to get everything cleaned up before another storm comes.”

Heavy equipment smoothed out rough roads Thursday, and many homeowners filled sandbags to protect their properties as skies darkened, thunder rumbled and rain fell again.

At one home, heavy erosion buried one side in several feet of sediment, and a homeowner pointed across the street to a pile of sediment around 10 feet high.

That’s how much we removed,” the homeowner said, “and we still have more than that to take out.”

It’s not unusual for a community at the bottom of steep mountain slopes and in the flood plain of Fountain Creek to be susceptible to flooding, but many residents said they’d never seen such extensive damage.

El Paso County authorities said floodwaters may have undermined a retaining wall where a new bridge is being built over Fountain Creek between Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs.

“But we can’t inspect it until we get the floodwaters out of there,” said county spokesman Dave Rose.

The county also revealed that repairs on a flood-damaged section of Old Pueblo Road — expected to last a week — will take longer because workers need to replace a smaller damaged culvert with a larger one.

In Teller County, flooding damaged two small bridges along County Road 21. A bridge connecting to a motel remains passable but another bridge leading to a home is considered unsafe to use.

“The motel is nice enough to let me use their bridge,” the homeowner said. “I think the flooding from Woodland Park is getting worse for us here because of the increased development there.”