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American Morning

Severe Storms Strike Colorado

Aired May 29, 2001 - 09:10   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Different kind of problem this morning for folks in Colorado. They are checking damage and cleaning up after last night's storms there. Ellicott, outside of Colorado Springs, was the hardest hit.

Cris Ornelas of CNN affiliate KKTV joining us, now, from Ellicott, with the latest.

Cris, good morning.

CRIS ORNELAS, KKTV REPORTER: Good morning, Daryn.

We're live here in Ellicott, Colorado, about 16 miles east of Colorado Springs. And first light is beginning to reveal some of the damage this tornado left about 12 hours ago.

Now, if we look down the road a little ways, we can see electrical crews still working at this hour to try to get some of the power poles back up and the power lines back up. Now, where they are working is directly across from Ellicott High School. Ellicott High School had its roofed completely ripped off of it last night and strewn across this highway and into the field. Now, as we go across this field, you're going to see several large silver structures. Each one of those is a large piece of the roof from Ellicott High School.

Now, it was strewn maybe 300 to 400 yards all across this open field, and you can see it nearly missed several homes in this field. Doesn't appear as though there's any damage there, and so that is really good news. One large house sitting out here in this field, it does have what appears to be a fifth-wheel trailer turned on it's side, but the house itself seems to be just fine.

Now, we had somewhere in the neighborhood of about 17 to 18 injuries last night. Most of those were minor and were treated and released, but then, we also have a handful that are still in the hospital tonight. About 19 mobile homes were damaged in this storm. And most serious injury happened when a 6-year-old boy suffered a broken femur when the mobile home he was in was overturned. Search and rescue continuing to look for people this morning. Don't believe they have any, but they are searching.

Reporting live in Ellicott, Colorado, Cris Ornelas -- Daryn, back to you. KAGAN: Cris, I've got to tell you, these are the kind of pictures we usually see maybe in Oklahoma City or here in the south, but not Colorado.

ORNELAS: Yes, absolutely. We're not used to this kind of severe weather here. We do see thunderstorms and we see hail, wind and rain, but tornadoes are really pretty rare. The last severe tornado we had in Colorado that actually damaged a portion of a town was in 1990, just a little bit east of here, when a tornado touched down in Limon, Colorado, and damaged a good section of the downtown area there. It's been a full 11 years since we've had that kind of damage here, just kind of getting used to that. It's going to be a long recovery here in Ellicott.

KAGAN: Cris Ornelas, thank you so much - Ellicott, Colorado. Thanks for that report.

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