A mobile home was blown off its foundation, another was split open by flying debris and several out buildings and barns near Ellicott were damaged by a tornado or high winds Monday afternoon, authorities said.
Calls started coming just before 4 p.m., said Lt. Clif Northam, of the El Paso County Sheriff’s Department. The damage occurred in a 65-square-mile area centered on Colorado 94 and Ellicott Highway, about 17 miles east of Colorado Springs.
Power lines were down in the area, but no highways were closed, he said. No serious injuries were reported.
The flying roof of a neighbor’s barn opened the south end of Mack and Connie Beatty’s modular ranch house. And Beckie Waltz and her family lived through a harrowing experience.
Waltz said she was home-schooling her son Randy, 16, and her granddaughter, Beca Wagner, 11, in a private school house on their property about four miles north of Colorado 94 along Ellicott Highway when Randy noticed a funnel cloud hanging over their property.
He told his mother, “It’s basement time.”
The three ran for the main house about 75 yards away, hampered by a two-inch blanket of marble-sized hail and debris.
They made it to the basement. But as Beckie Waltz and Beca huddled, Randy Waltz left the safety of the basement to get his cellphone to work so he could contact his sister, Leslie Wagner, asleep in the guest house.
“What’s going on?” Leslie Wagner asked.
“Get in a safe place. There’s a tornado,” the teenager said.
Leslie Wagner took a large pillow into the bathroom and covered herself.
“I was thinking that my house was going to get picked up and taken away,” she said.
When calm returned about 20 minutes later, there was a hole in the side of the guest house right where Leslie Wagner had been sleeping.
The Waltz family lost a barn, the roof off another barn, a warming shelter and a carport.
A little south of the Waltz’ property, Beatty said his wife had just come home from the grocery store and he was helping put the groceries away. It started to thunder, lightning and hail, he said.
All of a sudden he saw debris flying by and, “It got real quiet,” Beatty said.
“I told her to get down, and the rest is history,” he said.
The tornado, confirmed by the National Weather Service, and winds were part of a system of damaging storms that moved off the Front Range on Monday afternoon and night, including one that sparked lightning that hit a Jefferson County recreation center.
The roof of Buchanan Recreation Center in Evergreen was hit by lightning just before 3 p.m., starting a fire that forced the evacuation of about 30 people, said Assistant Fire Chief Jim Pidcock of the Evergreen Fire Department.
With assistance from the Genesee and Foothills fire departments, the blaze was under control in about 10 minutes and out in half an hour, Pidcock said.
He estimated the damage at about $10,000. No injuries were reported, and the center is expected to re-open this morning.
A tornado that touched down in Ellicott on Memorial Day in 2001 injured 18 people and did more than $9 million in damage. It destroyed the junior and senior high schools and 31 mobile homes, and damaged 68 others.
Staff writer Kieran Nicholson contributed to this report.
Staff writer Jim Kirksey can be reached at 303-820-1448 or jkirksey@denverpost.com.
Recent Colorado tornadoes
Oct. 3, 2004: Eleven tornadoes touch down in 40 minutes in Adams and Weld counties; no injuries are reported despite moderate property damage.
June 20, 2004: A tornado touches down in the Black Forest area of El Paso County.
June 15, 2004: Several twisters sweep through Elbert and Douglas counties; no injuries are reported.
June 9, 2004: A tornado whips down Sterling’s main street, downing power lines and damaging gas mains.
May 8, 2003: Five weak tornadoes cause minimal damage along the Front Range.
March 17, 2003: A tornado touches down in a field about 7 miles northeast of Byers.
Aug. 28, 2002: A twister touches down 6 miles east of Lamar and another 3 miles south of Wiley.
Source: Denver Post archives
