Flash Flooding Kills 3 in Colorado (+video)

Massive flash flooding along Colorado’s picturesque Front Range mountains, triggered by what the National Weather Service termed “biblical rainfall amounts,” killed at least three people Thursday, cut off small towns and forced countless residents to scramble for high ground.

Boulder, home to the University of Colorado, was among the hardest hit by the devastating waters. Classes were canceled, hundreds of students evacuated and a quarter of the campus buildings damaged by rising water, authorities said.

“This is not an ordinary day. It is not an ordinary disaster,” Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said, describing walls of water as high as 20 feet that tore down mountainsides and canyons already scarred and denuded from wildfires.

“All the preparation in the world … can’t put people up those canyons while these walls of water are coming down,” he said.

President Obama signed an emergency declaration Thursday night, which frees up federal aid and allows the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief efforts.

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