COMMERCE CITY, Colo.—Commerce City officials have ordered about 400 residents to leave a neighborhood near the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge after a nearby dam failed and as rain continued to fall in the area.
The city northeast of Denver ordered the evacuation of the Irondale neighborhood next to Highway 2 on Thursday night. Police spokesman Christian Rasmussen says the dam on the refuge was breached earlier in the day and water was flowing into Irondale, a mix of mobile homes, industrial sites and farmland.
Rasmussen says Commerce City police earlier evacuated neighborhoods that are home to 2,000 to 3,000 people because retention ponds were overflowing. No injuries were reported.
Heavy rain along Colorado’s Front Range on Thursday cut off remote towns, forced hundreds of evacuations and left at least three people dead.
