Residents in Bennett and Elbert County were left cleaning up damage Monday after a swath of tornadoes blew through the area Sunday afternoon. The storms damaged or destroyed 36 structures, and no injuries were reported in either area.
The tornado in Bennett touched down at least three times and left 17 homes or structures with damage, according to Arapahoe County Sheriff’s officials. Officials said six of the structures were homes.
In Elbert County, 19 homes in the Elkhorn neighborhood were damaged by a separate tornado, according to a social media post from the Elizabeth Fire Protection District.
Joey and Brenda Belmudez were in Alabama for a family member’s graduation party on Sunday afternoon when a neighbor called with the bad news: A tornado had struck their home in the Elkhorn Ranch subdivision in Elbert County.
The Belmudezes booked the first flight of Birmingham on Monday morning, landed at Denver International Airport at 8 a.m. and drove straight to their home.
“Devastation,” Joey Belmudez said.
The couple had moved into the house on April 18.
Now they don’t know when it will be livable again.
On Monday afternoon, Brenda Belmudez swept dirt, pine needles and other debris off a table in their entryway. It seemed an almost futile effort toward cleaning as she stood on shattered glass and two-by-fours were impaled in the wall behind her.
“It’s just overwhelming,” she said. “It’s like a war zone.”
Tornadoes do brutal things.
The Belmudezes believe an out building at an across-the-street neighbor’s house was picked up by the funnel cloud and slammed into the front of their house. A 2011 Chevy Tahoe’s front windshield looked like it had been blasted by a shotgun. Large picture windows were gone. Inside, the family’s clothes, pictures and other belongings were scattered on the floors. The roof appeared to be lifted off the joists.
The couple had left their two mastiffs, Drago and Lita, with a pet sitter. She had left to run errands when the tornado tore through the neighborhood. The dogs, in a panic, leaped through broken window. The pet sitter, the Belmudezes’ family and neighbors searched for the dogs, sharing their pictures in neighborhood chats. By 11:30 p.m. Sunday, both dogs were found, uninjured.
The Belmudezes are from Colorado and recently made the decision to move back home from Alabama.
Joey Belmudez said tornadoes were rare when he was growing up and it made news if anyone saw a funnel cloud.
In Alabama, tornadoes were a routine threat.
“We figured when we moved back we wouldn’t have to worry about tornadoes anymore, “ Joey Belmudez said. “And here we are.
“It’s not supposed to happen in Colorado.”
Workers in the neighborhood hustled to board broken windows as dark clouds gathered overhead, promising another round of rain with potential thunderstorms.
Fitness classes at Bennett’s recreation center are canceled this week after the instructor lost everything in one of Sunday’s tornadoes, Bennett Park & Recreation District Director Leila Schaub said.
The instructor’s home was one of six affected Sunday, she said.
“There’s no words that can describe inside her home, or outside, at all,” Schaub said.
When Schaub visited her employee Monday morning, she said she saw shrapnel strewn across the property and road leading up to the destroyed home, outbuilding and shed. The employee also lost her chickens and dogs when the tornado tore apart their coops and pens.
Two green apples sat undisturbed on the counter inside the home amidst the wreckage, Schaub said.
The recreation center was open to those who needed shelter Sunday night, but Schaub said no one used it. Those impacted by the tornadoes largely stayed with friends and family or hauled generators out to their powerless homes.
A video posted on X by a KOA News reporter showed a farm near the intersection of East 72nd Avenue and Provost Road north of Bennett with damaged buildings and debris. The reporter, Nia Bender, said the homeowner reported a large structure near the back of his property, where he stored a mobile home and classic cars, was hit, blowing the mobile home into a field and damaging the vehicles.
The National Weather Service’s Storm Survey Team also was out assessing damage in those areas Monday, a social media post said. The agency also hoped to determine the tornadoes’ EF ratings by Monday afternoon, the post said.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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