As a sudden storm pounded Englewood Tuesday evening, a cat-sitter was trapped in a rapidly-flooding basement apartment. Police officers rescued the woman from waters that reached the ceiling, but she later died.
Water had reached the top of the basement stairs when police arrived at 4650 S. Acoma St. after 6:45 p.m., and water in the neighborhood was knee deep.
“There was water in the front yards, backyards, and a car actually floated down part of the street that ended up in front of the house,” said Chad Read, Englewood police spokesman. “The water was extremely high.”
Two inches of rain fell in a short period of time in the area, according to the National Weather Service.
A handful of officers were able to get partway down the flooded stairway and kick open the basement door, Read said. One of the responding officers’ height — he is nearly 7-feet tall — was an asset, as he reached into the flooded room to search for human life.
“If it wasn’t for him, they probably never would have gotten her out,” Read said. “He’s just reaching through the water because they had information that someone was in there.”
The Arapahoe County Coroner’s Office identified the woman as 32-year-old Rachael Marie Haber.
The cat, whose name Read did not know, died in the flood waters.
Just spoke to JoLee Dreher who lives next door to the flooded home in Englewood where a woman trapped in the basement died. This is JoLee's basement apartment. You can see the water line. "All the sudden it was the Mississippi River." Everyone in her apt. got out safe. pic.twitter.com/2LRUZxSUXN
— Elizabeth Hernandez (@ehernandez) July 25, 2018
People who lived upstairs in the flooded home had called police, concerned about how those downstairs were faring in the flood. The homeowner turned out to be out of town, but the cat-sitter was in danger.
A tenant living above Haber told Denver7 that she heard pounding and screaming in the apartment below her and went downstairs to try to help the victim, but couldn’t locate the door because of how high the water was.
According to Haber’s mother, whom Denver7 spoke with Wednesday, Haber was working at an area hospital as a pharmacy specialist. Her mother said Haber was watching her friend’s cat at the home in Englewood Tuesday when the flash flood happened.
Once the officer grabbed the unresponsive woman, they began performing CPR on her.
Denver Fire and Denver Health officials arrived on scene and continued to try to help the victim.
Haber was taken to Swedish Medical Center in critical condition. She died early Wednesday morning, police said.
“It’s an absolutely tragic thing that happened,” Read said. “It’s unusual. That water rushed in there so quickly. I don’t know how or why she got stuck inside.”
Parked plumbing vehicles were a common sight Wednesday afternoon along South Acoma Street.
JoLee Dreher lives in the basement apartment next-door to the home where Haber was trapped. Water still filled the stairwell to Dreher’s front door Wednesday afternoon, making it impossible to enter. The back door had to be kicked out by her fleeing family who struggled to make it outside the apartment Tuesday as flood water poured in, rising from ankle deep to chest deep within minutes.
“The water was rushing so fast, it was literally shutting the doors behind my family,” Dreher said.
Dreher was working at Bradley gas station a few steps away from her Englewood home when the flooding happened, but family in the apartment was able to safely evacuate everyone inside including the 40-year-old’s two youngest children.
Dreher ran home during work to make sure everyone was safe when she noticed the flood waters raging toward her home.
“All of the sudden it was like the Mississippi,” Dreher said. “It was just like a big lake around the whole house.”
While Dreher waited for someone to pump out her home, she watched her fridge float by through a burst basement window.
She peered through her now-broken bathroom window into a mess of mud, water and debris.
“Believe it or not, this had a pretty purple bath set and was sparkly clean before I left for work,” Dreher said.
Dreher, who has been living at the home for about six months, said she didn’t know her neighbor or the victim, but that the tragedy next door made her feel lucky.
“It really sucks my entire life is under water, but I’m just glad my kids are OK,” Dreher said. “These are all just replaceable things. I’m not going to complain.”
Tuesday’s rain also caused a giant sinkhole to open in nearby Sheridan, swallowing an SUV. The driver was able to get out safely and the mangled Toyota RAV4 was pulled from the hole on Wednesday.
