It’s been more than a month since Colorado was slammed by torrential rainstorms and flooding that left eight people dead and 20,000 homes damaged, and residents are still trying to pick up the pieces.
“We had 100 pumps that we had lent out,” says Rabbi Yakov Borenstein of Chabad Jewish Center of Longmont, “but those are all back. Now people are on waiting lists to have their homes rebuilt—if they can afford it. The initial adrenaline rush has passed, and the damage is still there.”
Borenstein says he and his fellow Chabad emissaries have shifted their focus from coordinating volunteer emergency-relief efforts to helping people rebuild their lives now that the waters have receded.
Bonni Raderman, who lives in the mountain range above Jamestown, which bore the brunt of the floodwaters’ force, says her primary obstacle is the isolation. “Our road down to town was completely washed away, so we had no way of coming and going,” she says. The home she shares with her husband, Joshua, and 1-year-old daughter sits at an elevation of 8,300 feet above sea level.
“Now, they opened a road that takes us through another town,” she adds, “but it still takes well over an hour when there is no traffic, which makes things very hard when you need to care for an infant.”
As the storm approached, Joshua Raderman donned a pair of big boots and used a shovel to single-handedly dig ditches around his family’s home, as well as the homes of his two neighbors—causing the water flowing down the mountain to bypass the houses. They eventually lost power, telephone service and running water (living high in the mountains, they didn’t have cellular service). With the road gone, contact with the outside world was gone, too.
“Fortunately, there were some firemen who were trapped up here with us, so at least we would see them once a day and feel that we were not alone in the world,” says Bonni.
Power has been restored, as has the phone and water. Yet with snow already on the ground, there are no definite plans for the rebuilding of the road that would connect the Radermans to Jamestown and Boulder.
Ironically, Joshua’s quick thinking is now working to their disadvantage. Since their home was not damaged, they are not eligible to receive assistance toward resettlement in another place with easier access to amenities.
Warm Soup and Challah
Bonni says that being in constant contact with Chanie Scheiner—co-director of Chabad Lubavitch of of Boulder County with her husband, Rabbi Pesach Scheiner—has been a great help: “She has been trying hard to get us temporary housing in town and has really been there for us throughout.”
For her part, Scheiner is still delivering homemade meals to those who need them; she’s cooked for some 300 families so far. “People are not physically starving,” she says, “but they are so busy taking care of their homes and getting things in order that they are neglecting themselves. When we walk in with warm soup and challah, they literally break down crying.”
“There was one man who had drifted away from the Jewish community,” she continues. “After we brought him a meal, he came to the Chabad House to pick up a Jewish calendar, explaining that our gesture helped him realize how much being Jewish means to him.”
Along with her husband, Scheiner has also been helping people who need to move their belongings into storage in Denver, providing free pickup and transport.
At the same time, all three area Chabads remain in need of extensive repairs.
Borenstein notes that since his Chabad center is unusable, his home has doubled as a Hebrew school for three-dozen children and also served as the site of a Sukkot gathering of more than 100 attendees.
“In spite of all the terrible damage,” he says, “people are getting out and looking toward the future.”
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