As the floodwaters recede in southwestern Colorado, response teams are just starting to gauge the extent of devastation .<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not going to be fixed immediately,\u201d Southwest Incident Management Team Commander Doug Fritz told residents gathered for a Monday night community meeting in South Fork<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s going to take awhile. That\u2019s the bad news.\u201d<\/p>\n Severe flooding swept across at least 12 Colorado counties last week, prompting Gov. Jared Polis to issue a disaster emergency declaration. That includes Alamosa, Archuleta, Conejos, Dolores, Hinsdale, La Plata, Mineral, Montezuma, Ouray, Rio Grande, San Juan and San Miguel counties.<\/p>\n The declaration activated the Colorado National Guard to support areas impacted by flooding, including evacuation and search-and-rescue efforts. As of Tuesday morning, the Guard had helped rescue 33 stranded residents and more than a dozen pets, mostly in Archuleta County spokesperson Staff Sgt. Patrick Crosley said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t know the condition of all the roads,\u201d U.S. Forest Service District Ranger Patrick Moran said during the South Fork community meeting. \u201cWe have hundreds and hundreds of miles out there, and we have people getting stuck and needing rescue.\u201d<\/p>\n Those rescue efforts are pulling resources from the local damage assessments and repairs in Rio Grande County \u201cbecause the sheriff and her team are having to break off to assist with that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n With snow on the ground in some parts of the high country and more in the forecast, the full extent of the forest damage may not be visible until the spring, Moran said.<\/p>\n As of Tuesday morning, most counties had switched to recovery mode and were working to assess damage.<\/p>\n About 800 structures, including 540 homes, in Archuleta County were affected by the floods, Archuleta County Commissioner Warren Brown told a crowd gathered in Pagosa Springs on Tuesday night. About a quarter of the county\u2019s roads remained impassable, and hunters were stuck behind at least four impassable Forest Service Roads, officials said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe sustained the Rio Blanco Fire, then 12 weeks later we have these October floods. As a county, we have certainly endured some major incidents in the last year,\u201d Sheriff Mike Le Roux said Tuesday night. \u201cWe truly are, I believe, a resilient community.\u201d\n<\/p>\n South Fork Fire Rescue officials<\/a> said several homes and businesses in Del Norte and Monte Vista had been affected, but the exact number was not available. The Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control<\/a> estimated Tuesday that the number of homes impacted was in the hundreds. Numerous local roads and state highways remained closed, and several bridges had been washed away.<\/p>\n A video posted by Fun Family Valley Resort<\/a>, which sits about 5 miles outside of South Fork, appeared to show tipped recreational vehicles, flooded campgrounds, an underwater minigolf course and cabins partially submerged in the flooded Rio Grande River.<\/p>\n Last week\u2019s storm, fueled by tropical moisture from the Pacific Ocean, dropped more than 5 inches of rain on the San Juan Mountains and surrounding areas in southwest Colorado. In Pagosa Springs, the San Juan River rose from 5 feet to more than 15 feet, the river\u2019s highest crest in 115 years<\/a> and higher than last year\u2019s \u201c100-year flood,\u201d<\/a> town leaders said.<\/p>\n The National Weather Service initially expected rivers to reach similar levels to last year, rushing about 3,000 cubic feet per second, South Fork Fire Rescue Cpt. Tyler Schmidt said Monday.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing familiar with those flood levels and what the river did last year, we were pretty confident in our ability to mitigate that effectively,\u201d Schmidt said. \u201cMost of our sandbagging from last time was already in place; we sent out some recon teams \u2026 looking at those old roads and assessing the further needs of those areas.\u201d<\/p>\n By Thursday night, the rivers\u2019 forecast flow had more than doubled, and first responders \u201chad no idea what the impact was going to be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The first mandatory evacuations were issued that night when a rising river took out the Park Creek Bridge, sending a large debris flow down the river, Schmidt said. At least two other nearby bridges and several local roads were damaged, Moran said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe water levels were way more intense than anyone anticipated,\u201d Rio Grande County Administrator William \u201cSkip\u201d Schoen said. \u201cThe weather forecast didn\u2019t quite get it right.\u201d<\/p>\n No injuries or fatalities have been reported in Mineral or Rio Grande counties, a fact that Rio Grande County Sheriff Anne Robinson called \u201cmiraculous.\u201d<\/p>\n As of Tuesday, mandatory evacuation orders remained in effect for:<\/p>\n The following roads remained closed, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation:<\/p>\n Colorado 151 is closed in both directions<\/a> between Forest Service Road 613 and U.S. 160, where floodwaters damaged and washed away parts of the highway, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation.\n<\/p>\n