HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. — James McHarge took the day off to piece back together what little is left of his fence after an estimated EF-1 tornado touched down in Highlands Ranch Thursday.
“It blew the whole thing over and then that section of about 16 feet is just gone,” McHarge said of his fence. “I don’t know where it ended up.”
His kids’ play structure is now upside down.
“The twisty thing that’s up in the air should be more the other way.”
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The damage in Highlands Ranch ranges from hundreds of trees down to ballpark bleachers flipped and ripped apart, to trampolines lifted and tossed aside.
“There’s certainly been worse in other states, but for us – this is unheard of,” said Barbara Bernardo, who raced home to take shelter from the storm Thursday.
Lindsay Lichty got the notification and thought what many of us think when our phones light up with weather alerts.
“I’m a native and so is my husband. We just thought – 'we get these notifications and it’s fine',” Lichty said. “And then we saw a piece of fence from our yard go flying across the street into our neighbor’s garage door and then realized it was a little more serious than we thought it was.”
“I’m kind of watching the skies north toward Denver — and I grew up in west Texas — so anytime you see green clouds you probably want to get out of there,” said Blake Froistad with the alumni association at Valor Christian High School. “We’re blessed. We had a ton of help this morning and cleaned up a lot of it. Buildings can be replaced, everybody’s safe – so we’re thankful for that.”
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“We have a lot of damage, but I will take that over injuries all day long,” Lichty said.
A sentiment of relief shared by man in Highlands Ranch.
“It’s just wood,” McHarge said. “What we’re really looking at is just wood. It’s a wood fence, it’s a wood play structure – that stuff got blown away. That’s all easy to fix. The house is fine, there’s no flooding, there’s no damage. I have two boys, they were safe – I was safe at work. Now we just kind of finish out the summer with a new yard, I hope.”
