Colorado Floods: More Than 1,000 Unaccounted For And At Least 19,000 Homes Damaged Or Destroyed

The number of people unaccounted for in flood-ravaged Colorado rose Sunday to 1,254 as flooding spread to 15 counties and rain continued to fall. However, officials cautioned the number is subject to change as widespread flood recovery efforts continue. The Colorado Office of Emergency management reports that five people, four in Boulder and one in El Paso County, are dead and 19,000 homes are either damaged or destroyed. "It's just going to take some time to determine the status of everybody," Nick Christensen of the Larimer County Sheriff's Office said. He added that with so many missing, the number of dead will likely rise.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper told ABC's "Good Morning America" that 16 or 17 helicopters were to resume searching for stranded residents Monday. Noting that many people have been without any kind of phone or Internet communications since the middle of last week, he says the focus of the effort is to make sure everyone in harm's way gets "out of there." Hickenlooper says while the death toll is expected to rise, he's hopeful that the vast majority of those people are "safe and sound."

The weather began to clear overnight, and only a light drizzle and patchy fog were left to hamper helicopter rescue missions early on Monday, according to Byron Louis of the National Weather Service office in Boulder. Louis said some areas had been drenched by as much as 16 inches of rain in just three days, the average for an entire year. "I've been in this office for 30-plus years, and I've never seen this type of rain, never," he said.

Residents are being encouraged to use white sheets, reflective mirrors, flares and signal fires to attract the attentions of the pilots and told to have a bag of medications, clothes, and other important items ready for when help arrives. The air rescue operations are the biggest in the United States since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, National Guard officials said.

President Barack Obama signed a major disaster declaration for Colorado on Sunday and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts in Boulder County. Governor Hickenlooper said he spoke by phone with U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, who "was adamant that the $5 million that was released Friday was just the beginning" of federal assistance. "We're going to come back and rebuild better than it was before," the governor said.

U.S. Army and National Guard troops have rescued 1,750 people cut off by washed-out roads in the mountain canyons of Boulder and Larimer counties, Army spokesman Major Earl Brown said in a statement. State officials would be unable to assess the overall damage until rescue efforts were complete and the floodwaters receded, said Micki Trost, the Colorado Office of Emergency Management spokeswoman.