Residents in Bennett and Elbert County were left cleaning up damage Monday after a swath of tornadoes blew through the area Sunday afternoon. The storms damaged or destroyed 36 structures, and no injuries were reported in either area.
The tornado in Bennett touched down at least three times and left 17 homes or structures with damage, according to Arapahoe County Sheriff’s officials. Officials said six of the structures were homes.
In Elbert County, 19 homes in the Elkhorn neighborhood were damaged by a separate tornado, according to a social media post from the Elizabeth Fire Protection District.
Joey and Brenda Belmudez were in Alabama for a family member’s graduation party on Sunday afternoon when a neighbor called with the bad news: A tornado had struck their home in the Elkhorn Ranch subdivision in Elbert County.
The Belmudezes booked the first flight of Birmingham on Monday morning, landed at Denver International Airport at 8 a.m. and drove straight to their home.
“Devastation,” Joey Belmudez said.
The couple had moved into the house on April 18.
Now they don’t know when it will be livable again.
On Monday afternoon, Brenda Belmudez swept dirt, pine needles and other debris off a table in their entryway. It seemed an almost futile effort toward cleaning as she stood on shattered glass and two-by-fours were impaled in the wall behind her.
“It’s just overwhelming,” she said. “It’s like a war zone.”
Tornadoes do brutal things.
The Belmudezes believe an out building at an across-the-street neighbor’s house was picked up by the funnel cloud and slammed into the front of their house. A 2011 Chevy Tahoe’s front windshield looked like it had been blasted by a shotgun. Large picture windows were gone. Inside, the family’s clothes, pictures and other belongings were scattered on the floors. The roof appeared to be lifted off the joists.
The couple had left their two mastiffs, Drago and Lita, with a pet sitter. She had left to run errands when the tornado tore through the neighborhood. The dogs, in a panic, leaped through broken window. The pet sitter, the Belmudezes’ family and neighbors searched for the dogs, sharing their pictures in neighborhood chats. By 11:30 p.m. Sunday, both dogs were found, uninjured.
The Belmudezes are from Colorado and recently made the decision to move back home from Alabama.
Joey Belmudez said tornadoes were rare when he was growing up and it made news if anyone saw a funnel cloud.
In Alabama, tornadoes were a routine threat.
“We figured when we moved back we wouldn’t have to worry about tornadoes anymore, “ Joey Belmudez said. “And here we are.
“It’s not supposed to happen in Colorado.”
Four workers lifted the frame of what once was a barn on Greg Torfin’s property in the Elkhorn Ranch subdivision and hauled it to a trash bin, newly parked in the driveway.
“This was a pole barn, built on six-by-six poles,” Torfin said. “They’re all snapped off at the base. This wasn’t just wind.”
Torfin was still assessing the tornado damage Monday afternoon. He already knows the second floor of his home is uninhabitable. The tornado’s force moved it a couple of inches.
The Torfin family had traveled to California for a vacation on Friday. They were at a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game when the Elbert County Sheriff’s Office called about the storm damage.
Torfin and his wife flew home immediately. The others stayed in California, he said.
His son’s gray Toyota Tundra pickup, which had been parked in the barn, had part of the roof on its hood and the windshield was smashed.
“He said, ‘Can I park my truck in your barn to protect it from hail?’” Torfin said with a laugh.
While the damage will take months to repair, Torfin said he was thankful that no one in the neighborhood was hurt.
Then he went back to work clearing debris as dark clouds gathered on the horizon, bringing the next May storm.
The tornado in Bennett hit hard and fast, said Vikki Katchen, a 68-year-old fitness instructor at the recreation center whose home was heavily damaged during the Sunday storm.
“It was horrifying. … We lost everything we own,” she said.
The tornado that passed over Katchen’s property also leveled her barn and totaled the five cars parked inside of it, which she had moved into the barn just before the storm hit out of fear they’d be damaged by hail. A man living with Katchen, whom she declined to name, stored multiple classic cars in the barn. All were destroyed, she said.
She said she’s still missing a truck, which seems to have blown away in the tornado. Katchen also couldn’t find her chickens and dogs after the tornado tore apart their coops and pens, but she reunited with most of them Monday. Two chickens are still missing.
Katchen and her roommate took shelter during the tornado by lying on the floor in the corner of a bedroom. The windows shattered under the pressure, showering the two with glass.
They purchased the then-foreclosed home near the intersection of East 72nd Avenue and Provost Road north of Bennett in 2001 and have lived there since, Katchen said.
”Everything we’ve worked for the last 25 years is gone, destroyed in two minutes,” Katchen said.
For now, Katchen is living in a mobile home parked on the edge of the wreckage, loaned to her by a close friend. Insulation, shrapnel and other debris are strewn across the property and road leading up to the destroyed home.
Other neighbors are sharing water, cars and more, she said.
“Everyone is trying to help, and I don’t even know what to tell them to do because I don’t know where to start,” she said.
Just a few blocks over, two Bennett siblings were working Monday to clean up their property along E. 64th Avenue.
Rob Anderson and Becky Johnson have lived in their house for more than 47 years and said they’ve never had a tornado come close to hitting them.
”We’ve had some bad wind storms and bad dirt storms, but nothing like this,” Johnson said while clearing debris from the side of her barn.
Her brother, Anderson, said he was securing the house and horses for the storm on Sunday when he walked around the corner and saw a tornado looming on the horizon.
Johnson sheltered in the basement, but Anderson stayed up in the living room to watch. Suddenly, it hit.
“It was terrifying,” Johnson said. “I kept yelling for him after I heard a big boom and glass shattering, but I couldn’t hear him. I had no idea what I was going to find upstairs.”
Luckily, Anderson escaped with no injuries beyond shaken nerves.
At least seven trees were uprooted, two sheds were destroyed and three horse trailers were thrown around on the siblings’ property Sunday, he said.
“Everything’s just a mess,” Anderson said, gesturing to the warped horse trailers and piles of debris outside the still-standing barn. “Just a couple of minutes and it did all this.”
Anderson raises race horses and had planned to take three to Iowa next week. He said it’s unclear if that trip is still possible without his equipment.
The recreation center was open to those who needed shelter Sunday night, but Bennett Park & Recreation District Director Leila Schaub said no one used it. Those impacted by the tornadoes largely stayed with friends and family or hauled generators out to their powerless homes.
The National Weather Service’s Storm Survey Team also was assessing damage on Monday, a social media post said. The agency also hoped to determine the tornadoes’ EF ratings by Monday afternoon, the post said.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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Originally Published: May 19, 2025 at 10:16 AM MDT
