Larimer County officials have confirmed that the body of an unidentified woman was found Saturday, Sept. 21, bringing the death toll from the flooding in Colorado to eight.
Update 9/24/2013 11:52 a.m. - Both of the remaining missing men, one from Estes Park and one from Loveland have been found. All of the listed missing have been accounted for in Larimer County. Only the 60-year-old woman who is missing, presumed dead from Cedar Cove remains unaccounted for.
Update 9/24/2012 9:02 a.m. - The Larimer Sheriff announced on Twitter that the list of missing is now down to 2. The publishing of names led to calls from the missing to announce their status. A man from Estes Park and from Loveland are still missing. We've updated the headline to reflect this new information.
Our original post continues:
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This discovery was made on the bank of the Big Thompson River near the 2900-block of North County Road 31D.
It is believed to be the body of the 79-year-old Cedar Cove woman previously listed as missing, presumed dead.
A 60-year-old woman from Cedar Cove and a 46-year-old man from Drake are currently listed as missing, presumed dead.
Update 3:58 p.m. - A bit of good news, the 46-year-old man from Drake who was listed as missing, presumed dead has contacted officials and let them know he is okay. In a release, the Larimer Sheriff says the man was able to climb out a window before his home was swept away by floodwater. This leaves only the 60-year-old woman from Ceder Cove as the lone missing, presumed dead.
"We still have two missing, assumed dead, but that could change at any time,"
Meanwhile, six people remain unaccounted for inLarimerCounty, 12 days since the flooding began. That number is down from 60 Saturday morning, as rescues continued over the weekend. Most of those six have probably chosen to shelter in place and haven’t had any way to contact family or authorities.
“Sixteen people were rescued over the weekend,” said John Shulz, a public information officer with the Larimer County Sherriff’s Department. He says that the statuses of unaccounted for and missing are very different.
“[The unaccounted for list] are not necessarily people that are missing but people that family and friends have not been able to contact,” Shulz said. “We still have two missing, presumed dead, but that could change at any time,” he said.
Shulz says in the next week the status of those unaccounted for will change to missing, which will trigger different protocol.
“We will list them on the national databases, in case someone comes in contact with them they will know that they are officially missing, we’ll probably be publishing the names of those people and I anticipate that after we do that at least a couple of those folks will pop up and say here I am, I’m OK, didn’t know I was unaccounted for or missing,” said Shulz.
Starting Tuesday, management of the flood response will transition from the national Type 2 Incident Management Team to a local Type 3 Team. The local team’s focus will be on recovery rather than rescue.
