LYONS — At the Riverbend Mobile Home Park, everything and everybody must go. Randy Castor is trying to sell his fairly new, slightly damaged home. He got off easy — September’s flooding only tore the skirting away from the bottom of his trailer and deposited sand a few feet deep on what had been his driveway and patio. “At first I thought I was going to be OK,” he said.
But other homes around him are condemned wreckage, so it doesn’t matter that he was largely spared by a raging St. Vrain Creek.
All 32 households must leave Riverbend, located on the western edge of Lyons, a mountain-locked town of about 2,000 in Boulder County.
“This was where I was going to live my life. I could walk out my door 50 yards and fish in the creek,” said Castor, the sweep of his arm taking in what is now a massive debris field. “I get a sinking feeling in my stomach every time I come up here to Lyons.”
There is no going home for Castor and thousands of other people driven from manufactured home parks by flooding. The state knows of 154 flood-destroyed mobile homes and another 901 that were damaged in 11 parks in the flood zone, said Kerri Nelson, Colorado’s deputy chief recovery officer.
Some parks may repopulate with new and renovated homes.
But entire neighborhoods in Evans, Longmont, Lyons and Milliken will be gone for good, if planners decide there are better uses for the land and safer places to resettle. So much lower-cost housing stock has been lost in northern Colorado communities that officials have few concrete ideas and fewer resources for replacing it.
In the town of Evans, an energy hub south of Greeley surrounded by agricultural businesses, the South Platte River breached its banks and man-made levees in more than 20 places on Sept 14 just upstream of two mobile home parks.
The river level of almost 18.79 feet that day smashed the previous flood record of 11.7 feet set in 1973.
The raging waters tore through the town’s crown jewel, Riverside Park and sports fields, revealing a long-buried and mostly forgotten landfill and scattering the contents.
It also ravaged 208 mobile homes in Eastwood Village and Bella Vista mobile home parks off 37th Street.
“They lost everything,” Evans recovery manager Sheryl Trent told the Flood Disaster Study Committee visiting from the state legislature Nov. 19.
More than 1,000 people lost their homes, and the town can’t begin to muster resources for replacement housing, Trent said.
Evans has “three No.1 priorities,” Trent told the committee: Coordinating debris removal from the manufactured home parks at an estimated cost of more than $800,000; the repair or replacement of its waste-water treatment plant; and figuring out what to do with the rediscovered landfill — and who must do it.
It’s a tall order for a town of 20,000 people.
FEMA just turned down Evans’ request for a debris-removal grant, but the EPA has agreed to fund an assessment of the landfill, Trent said Monday.
In the meantime, she said, many mobile-home residents have resettled in Greeley, where already higher trailer rates have been pushed higher still by new demand.
“It’s been a struggle. It’s been very stressful on the families,” said Sen. Scott Renfroe, R-Greeley.
Milliken
The small town of Milliken, a historic agriculture and railroad center with a population of about 6,000, serves as a bedroom community for Longmont, Loveland, Fort Collins and Greeley.
The South Platte
and the Big Thompson and Little Thompson creeks all come together in Milliken. When they flooded, they took out the approach to every bridge into town, completely isolating Milliken for four or five days, said Police Chief Jim Burack.
The flood destroyed 35 and seriously damaged eight residences in two mobile home parks. More than 200 people were evacuated to shelter in the middle school. Then there was a scramble to find short-term housing. The town put up one large family in its new, as yet unopened, museum for about two months.
“Our priority is the safety, long term, of the two mobile home parks, so the town is in the process of trying to determine if those areas are in a flood-prone area,” Burack said. “We’re trying to determine the best use of that land.”
The short-term plan is to allow continued use of the parks for those with the resources to repair their flood-wrecked homes at the site. With winter coming, they didn’t want people to find themselves homeless if their trailers were habitable.
“We don’t know what the long-term plan is for the parks,” Burack said. “We don’t want people leaving Milliken.”
The town acknowledges it will be hard to find affordable substitutes for the 35-space Evergreen Mobile Home Park, with its largely Latino and Spanish-speaking close-knit community full of family ties. The smaller Martin Family Trailer Park essentially serves one extended family.
“The biggest price has been paid by these individuals. Some of these families have been here 40 years,” Burack said.
“We’re trying to think creatively. Our board is extremely sensitive to the financial pressures on these families. How do we keep the elements that made these places real communities? How do you replicate that in a new development? I’m not sure we know the full scope of the challenge yet.”
Town officials have been working Habitat for Humanity, the state Division of Housing, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development and a local interfaith alliance to try to develop affordable alternatives.
Longmont
In Longmont, the flooding St. Vrain damaged four trailer parks but caused the worst destruction at the 60-space Royal Mobile Home Park. The city plans to purchase the property, although some residents want to stay.
“We still hope to accomplish that this year,” Longmont’s public works director Dale Rademacher said. “A portion of the property is needed for enlargement of the St. Vrain channel — to make improvements that will protect the city from floods in the future.”
Town officials realize people need time to relocate, and Longmont won’t make them vacate until they’ve had sufficient time, community and neighborhood resource specialist Jon Clarke said.
Royal resident Antonio Jimenez said the park had been “a nice place to live.”
“I’m just feeling a little sad,” Jimenez said, about departing. He’s also worried about finding another place for his family’s trailer.
“Too many people are moving out at the same time,” he said. “But for the damage and the danger from the river, we need to move.”
Clarke said seven families have chosen to stay in the park for now, 12 families are moving, one already has left, 27 households are still negotiating with FEMA for more money to repair or replace, and the city hasn’t been able to contact the rest.
“While dealing with all the trauma of the flood, these people are asked to make all these life-changing decisions,” Clarke said. “Every story is different. It’s really a mixed bag.”
The city will cover demolition costs to eventually clear the ground.
Clarke’s staff has been trying to help residents calculate what it would cost to repair, replace and move their mobile homes. Clarke has had complaints that FEMA payments for the homes have varied widely depending on the officials handling the case, from about $3,000 to $30,000, for damages the residents believe are comparable.
“As we’re seeing these inconsistencies, we’re working with FEMA to understand and explain them,” state recovery official Nelson said.
Many of the homes required repairs in dollar amounts greater than their estimated resale values. Others might be sound enough to live in but couldn’t survive a move down the highway.
Lyons
Back in Lyons, the giant claw of an excavator is finishing what the flood started at Riverbend. It’s ripping apart homes.
It’s an expensive proposition to demolish or salvage what’s left of 32 homes. Park owner Mike Whip thinks about half are in good enough shape to be relocated. The final bill for all this is a question mark.
It’s too risky to rebuild or relocate structures in this altered floodplain and too costly to meet new FEMA standards, he said.
“But I’m not interested in selling the property,” Whip said. “I’m going to clean it up and make it look like a park.”
He said it would make a good wedding venue, or campground — a relatively undeveloped setting he could more easily reclaim from the next flood.
“I have huge compassion for the families who aren’t here anymore,” Whip said, but he can’t replace their housing.
Another dozen Lyons families lost their homes at the Foothills Mobile Home Park. Only one park remains in town.
“I now understand the word ‘catastrophe,’ ” Lyons Mayor Julie Van Domelen said. “The destruction along the river is jaw-dropping.”
The two trailer parks and older frame houses nearby represented “Old Lyons,” she said. The neighborhoods were home to older residents, artists and a more Bohemian element, including many people born and raised there.
“They helped make Lyons what it is. We want to keep them here. This is one of the hardest things to figure out,” Van Domelen said. “We had more than 200 homes damaged or destroyed — everything from water in the basement to swept away.
“We have 950 or so households, so we lost more than 20 percent of our housing stock. It’s not easy to replace lost housing. Finding land for residential development will be a big challenge,” she said. “We have no space, no plans for it.”
As for resources to purchase land or participate in affordable housing programs, Lyons is struggling to pay its share of the bill for flood damage.
After FEMA and the state handle their portions, the town estimates it must come up with $6.25 million — about $2 million more than it has in all its reserves.
The mayor estimated 80 percent of residents have returned since the forced evacuation of the town, which was left without water, sewer or power for about six weeks.
“For so long we were focused on coming home,” Van Domelen said. “Now being home can be hard.”
For mobile home residents, it may be impossible.
Electa Draper: 303-954-1276, edraper@denverpost.com or twitter.com/electadraper