Flooding Cleanup Efforts Ongoing In Commerce City

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. (CBS4) - When water rose and rains pounded down on Thursday afternoon in the Denver area, the Commerce City area was one of the hardest hit.

Flooding was a problem at the Adams 14 School District's administrative building on East 60th Avenue.

Adams 14 Schools spokesman John Albright says maintenance crews worked damage control from 5:30 p.m. to midnight Thursday night, then started again at 5 a.m. on Friday.

PHOTO GALLERY: Thursday Storm Photo Gallery

"There are lots of leaves and dirt and debris in the carpet," Albright said.

At one point during the strong storm tornado warning sirens went off. Albright evacuated from his third floor office to the basement, and that's when he realized there was going to be some water damage."

"Right here is where all the water started to come down," he said. "It really built up here. We had this garage door, and as it slammed up against there, it actually bowed the whole door in the middle and started coming in straight through the sides and quickly just flooded out the whole basement."

Besides some water logged textbooks, Albright says property damage wasn't too bad.

"Everything is good in order, and we can continue cleaning over the weekend. So hopefully we won't have another flood today but a lot of that is really not in our hands."

Frank Riehl operates an auto service shop nearby on 64th Avenue. He told CBS4 the streets were flooded at least two feet during the storm.

"All the mud started rolling from down the street, coming up the street, across the drive here and into the building," Riehl said.

It was enough water for part of the garage floor to collapse.

"I've been here for 50 years, and I've never had this problem before. A little water once in a while, but that's it."