![]() ![]() Spezze said officials have asked the Forest Service to close it permanently. Forest Service maintains the busy trail near St. Four could probably be recovered using hand tools, but special equipment was needed to dislodge a huge boulder - possibly a heavy inflatable bag - and retrieve the fifth body, said David Noltensmeyer of the North End Search and Rescue team. “I started digging her out until I had more help come and we got her all the way out,” he said.Ī search team was working Tuesday to recover the bodies. He saw Gracie Johnson’s hand sticking up through the rocks. ![]() Tolsma said he was one of the first at the scene and heard screaming from beneath the rubble. A hiker who heard the slide in Chalk Creek Canyon ran down the trail and called for help, Spezze said. Witnesses said some of the boulders were the size of cars. “In Colorado, there’s a lot of steep slopes, and I don’t think anybody’s got the money to pay for the studies for all the steep slopes,” he said. With enough data, geologists can identify slopes that are susceptible to slides, Higgins said, but finding all of them would be a massive undertaking. ![]() Rain or melting snow can make slides more likely by weakening a steep slope and making the rocks and soil heavier, said Jerry Higgins, an associate professor of geological engineering at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden. ![]() What triggered it wasn’t immediately known, though Spezze said the area had heavy summer rain and a recent snowfall. The massive slide left a gash the size of a football field in the mountainside, Undersheriff John Spezze said. Monday’s slide sent 100-ton boulders onto a popular viewing area that overlooks Agnes Vaille falls below 14,197-foot Mount Princeton in south-central Colorado. “The community will come together to grieve for the friends we have lost and support the family during this difficult time.” “Any sudden loss of life is difficult to handle within small communities but something of this magnitude is devastating to all of us,” Sheriff Pete Palmer said. They were nephews of Dwayne and Dawna Johnson.ĭwayne and Dawna Johnson were coaches in Buena Vista schools, were well known in the town and very active in community events, the sheriff’s department said. The other victims were identified as Baigen (BAY’-gun) Walker, 10, and Paris Walkup, 22, both of Birch Tree, Mo. The sheriff’s department identified the dead as Dwayne Johnson, 46, and Dawna Johnson, 45, Gracie’s parents and her 18-year-old sister, Kiowa-Rain Johnson. Gracie’s parents and sister from nearby Buena Vista were killed, as were two of her cousins from Missouri. “She told me at the last second when the boulders were coming down on top of them that he covered her up and protected her, which I believe it saved her life,” said sheriff’s Deputy Nick Tolsma. Rescuers dug Gracie Johnson out of the rubble after Monday’s slide, and she was airlifted to a Denver-area hospital with a broken leg, the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Department said Tuesday. (AP) - A 13-year-old girl said her father shielded her as boulders crashed down on them on a Colorado hiking trail - an action that authorities say probably saved her life even as her father and four other family members were killed. ![]()
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