Family in southwest Colorado endures sleepless night as floodwaters rise in La Plata County
As floodwaters surged across parts of southwest Colorado, turning roads into rivers and forcing evacuations, one Durango-area woman spent the night watching the water creep closer to her home.
Cindy Pugsley, who lives about 10 miles north of downtown Durango, documented the flooding in her neighborhood with her cellphone as heavy water flows transformed familiar roads, leaving residents uncertain about what the next few hours would bring.
"That's actually a road that turns off to the right there, and it's about a quarter mile long, and now it is an entire flooded river," Pugsley said as she showed CBS Colorado the view from her neighborhood.
Pugsley described a tense and emotional night as her family monitored the rising water.
"We spent most of the night sitting on the back porch watching the river that is a quarter mile away get closer and closer to our back steps, and we started watching giant trees coming down," she said.
While Pugsley's home felt safe enough to stay, her concerns quickly turned to her children, who live in mobile homes in a harder-hit area.
"Our heart was breaking most of the night, wondering if our children's mobile homes were being carried away," she said.
As conditions worsened overnight, emergency crews sent warnings to evacuate.
"We had an emergency ambulance come through the neighborhood, and they went door to door and asked people if they wanted to evacuate or not," Pugsley said.
Although the family initially stayed put, the fast-moving flood eventually forced them to leave. Pugsley said neighbors stepped in to help, opening their home on higher ground.
"A very nice couple in our neighborhood that lives in Texas opened their home to us to stay when this morning the water was still rising," she said.
Pugsley says she remains grateful that her own home seems to have survived and is thankful for the emergency responders who have worked around the clock to help the community. She hopes others take away an important lesson from what her family experienced.
"If anybody ever says the word flash flood, do not take it lightly," Pugsley said. "Mother Nature is a force that humans should not reckon with at all. And if they say get high ground, if they say evacuate, evacuate."
