September 11, 2015 marks two years since heavy flooding damaged areas of Boulder County, leaving homes destroyed and people stranded by the water.
A group of kids on a field trip from Fort Collins were stranded in Estes Park after rains washed out the road into the mountains. One school bus driver recalls when he went on a 445-mile rescue mission through Wyoming and into the western part of the park to save the stranded teachers and students.
Brad Sarff is a retired fire chief and a school bus driver of five years. In 2013, he drove his school bus to pick up a group stranded during a field trip in Estes Park when the road in was washed away by heavy waters.
“You could tell that it was significant chaos," said Sarff of his trip. "It was like that all the way out," he told 7NEWS reporter Kyle Horan.
The flooding happened on Thursday, but the bus to pick up the kids didn't leave Fort Collins until Friday. The teachers and students stranded on the mountain had no way to communicate with people at the bottom. They had no idea a bus was coming to pick them up.
Despite being stranded, schools have not stopped taking trips into Estes Park. Sarff said he took the same group of teachers on a field trip there just last year.