Vacationing Texas couple among four dead or missing after Colorado mudslide, son says
A Texas couple is among four family members believed to be dead after a mudslide last week in Colorado.
Flooding in Poudre Canyon pushed debris through the scenic area northwest of Fort Collins last Tuesday evening, destroying six homes and prompting a search for survivors, officials said. Three bodies have been found and a fourth person remained missing as of Wednesday.
Colorado Brown told the Denver Post that his parents, David and Diana Brown of San Antonio, along with his aunt, Patricia Brown, and grandfather, Richard Brown, were on vacation when the mudslide washed through the canyon.
“According to neighbors and authorities, there was little to no warning,” Colorado Brown said in Facebook on Tuesday. “There are not enough words to express all the emotion I’ve felt since I’d heard the news.”
Brown said they had been staying at his grandfather’s cabin during an annual trip, and his parents loved Colorado so much they named him after the state, the Denver Post reported.
“We would go there every year,” Brown told the newspaper.
The body of Patricia Brown, a 59-year-old from Madison, Wisconsin, was found the day of the flood, according to county officials.
The Larimer County Sheriff’s Office searched the canyon with dogs and rescue teams for five the next five days before they found the body of 61-year-old David Brown in the Cache la Poudre River near a lodge on Sunday.
On Monday, a man’s body was found in the river and a dive team responded to pull him from the water, officials said. His identity wasn’t released but Colorado Brown said the body is likely his grandfather, the Denver Post reported.
Diana Brown remained missing.
She and her husband were a “dynamic theatre duo,” according to the San Antonio Theatre Coalition. Diana Brown help start the nonprofit organization.
“Diane was a founding SATCO member and the heartbeat of our organization,” the nonprofit posted on Facebook. “There wasn’t a thing that she couldn’t or wouldn’t do. Her husband David ‘DB’ Brown was a talented actor and, most notably, a wonderful improvian with the Oxymorons Improv Troupe.”
The couple’s friends told Texas Public Radio that they traveled to the cabin every July for over 30 years.
“It was definitely (David’s) happy place,” Hilary Keahey told Texas Public Radio. “He talked about it like a refuge.”
This story was originally published July 28, 2021 at 5:39 PM with the headline "Vacationing Texas couple among four dead or missing after Colorado mudslide, son says."