Triathlon team helps with flood relief in Jamestown

The CU triathlon team took 21 athletes up to Jamestown to help with flood relief efforts over the weekend. Even though it’s been six weeks since the initial flooding, there is still damage that the mountain town has yet to repair.

“Unimaginable,” said triathlete Juliana White, a graduate speech, language and hearing student. “There were houses that were just off their foundations completely. There was a property that we walked by that literally wasn’t there anymore; it got washed away in the flood.”

A flood victim named Bill suffered damage to his summer cabin. The team’s main task focused on diverting water from the cabin. They spent much of their day placing sand bags and rock fortification around his property to prevent spring floods from furthering the damage.

Despite the amount of damage that the property received, Bill has stayed positive throughout the recovery process, said the triathletes. This uplifting mentality was shared by the majority of the Jamestown residents, and it astounded the volunteers.

“A lot of people we talked with up there were not even thinking about replacing their houses or getting their lives back together,” said triathlete Justin Whaley, a mechanical engineering student. “It was just, ‘Can we get a road up here so we can start the real clean-out work? Can we stabilize the trails so we don’t have any more damage in the spring?’ The mind frame they have up there – it’s hardly what we expected going into that, and it was pretty overwhelming.”

They spent most of the rest of the day clearing off Ward Street.

“It was completely gone,” said team president Jesse Frank, a senior mechanical engineering student. “It used to be a road, but now it’s just a river.”

After going up to Jamestown to band together in the flood relief effort, the members of the triathlon team said they felt closer than they were before.

“For the team to go up there, it was a great bonding experience,” Whaley said. “You focus so much on training here with the triathlon, especially when you have three sports you have to work on. To have something where you can come together and function as a team is great for the team and for the community of Jamestown. It’s a win-win, I think.”

Contact CU Independent staff writer Alissa Noe at alissa.noe@colorado.edu.