By Keith Coffman
DENVER (Reuters) – More than 100 motorists stranded in an overnight mudslide in Colorado were ushered to safety from a mountain canyon where heavy rains unleashed a torrent of muck and debris down slopes stripped bare by a wildfire last year, officials said on Friday.
No one was reported hurt, but many travelers were trapped for hours after the slide cascaded across Interstate 70 through Glenwood Canyon, a picturesque gorge carved by the Colorado River, about 160 miles west of Denver.
In some spots, mud, boulders and other debris were piled 12 feet deep, Mike Goolsby, a regional director for the Colorado Department of Transportation, said at a Friday news briefing.
“I’m knocking on wood that no one was injured,” Goolsby said.
One motorist caught in the slide described a harrowing scene to Denver television station KUSA.
“It was moving the car,” motorist Mark Allen told the station. “I could tell the tires were not touching the ground.”
The Grizzly Creek wildfire, which scorched nearly 33,000 acres inside the canyon last year, denuded the mountainside of vegetation, leaving a burn scar unable to absorb large amounts of water when heavy rains struck.
The canyon has been closed numerous times over the last month when either slides or flash-flood warnings were forecast for the area.
Around 75 people spent the night inside their vehicles at a rest area until crews could clear the roadway, officials said.
About 20 people trapped inside a tunnel in the canyon were rescued early Friday by emergency crews who plowed a path through the debris field to reach them, the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
In all, 108 people riding in about 35 vehicles were trapped by the debris, and the interstate through the canyon remained closed indefinitely, authorities said.
(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver; Editing by Steve Gorman and Leslie Adler)
