Utah wildfire evacuees allowed to return to homes

About 2,300 Utah wildfire evacuees were allowed to return to their homes Saturday evening after officials determined the blaze no longer posed a threat to them.

By Lynn DeBruin, AP

fills the sky Friday above Saratoga Springs, Utah.

By Lynn DeBruin, AP

fills the sky Friday above Saratoga Springs, Utah.

The decision came after the fire had burned Friday within a quarter mile of some homes in Saratoga Springs and Eagle Mountain, about 40 miles south of Salt Lake City, Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman Teresa Rigby said.

No homes have burned, she said, and fire officials were comfortable with the decision to lift the evacuation order after seeing how the 9-square-mile blaze behaved Saturday afternoon during high winds and high temperatures.

"The fire itself is still active but it no longer is a direct threat to homes," Rigby told The Associated Press. "Most of the fire is up on the mountain at this time and not near the subdivisions."

By Sam Noblett, Gannett

Flames roar down a Colorado mountainside Saturday.

The evacuation order, imposed Friday, affected nearly 600 homes and roughly 2,300 residents, according to an updated count released Saturday by fire officials.

Winds pushed some of the fire back on itself Saturday afternoon, Rigby said, and crews managed to put out "hot spots" closest to homes.

The fire that officials believe was started Thursday by target shooters was 30% contained Saturday evening, with full containment expected Tuesday.

Crews also were battling a 16,500-acre brush fire on high desert near the town of Delta in central Utah.

The human-caused fire was 60% contained Saturday evening, BLM spokesman Don Carpenter said, and had burned no homes after breaking out Friday.

While the fire was burning roughly eight miles from the communities of Lynndyl and Leamington, it posed no threat to them at this time, he said.

Elsewhere:

— A fast-growing blaze has spread to 75,537 acres in Colorado, making it the second-largest wildfire in the state's recorded history and threatening numerous homes north of Fort Collins.

High Park Fire Incident Commander Bill Hahnenberg said Saturday morning that the fire spread rapidly toward two subdivisions, Glacier View Meadows and Hewlett Gulch, on Friday as the fire jumped the Narrows section of Poudre Canyon in highly erratic weather conditions and moved northwest. Containment of the fire was reported at 45 percent Saturday morning.

Firefighters had to pull out of the neighborhood Friday when they encountered flames 200 feet high, he said.

"We saved two homes," he said. "And obviously we lost quite a few."

There were 25 fire engines, two 20-person fire crews and five heavy air tankers fighting the fire in the Glacier View Meadows area Saturday, but possible wind gusts of more than 30 mph could ground the aircraft, he said

— In Nevada, a wildfire that has scorched more than 11,000 acres of rugged terrain in northeast Nevada near the Utah line is 75% contained. It began as a U.S. Forest Service prescribed burn that escaped June 9.

— In New Mexico, a lightning-caused wildfire that destroyed 242 homes and businesses is 90% contained after crews got a break in the weather. Crews took advantage of heavy rain Friday to increase containment lines on the 69-square-mile fire near Ruidoso that began June 4. Meanwhile, the more than 464-square-mile Whitewater-Baldy blaze, the largest in state history, is 87% contained. It began May 16 as two lightning-caused blazes that merged to form one fire.

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Feds say workers return to Gulf oil and gas jobs (AP)

NEW ORLEANS – Federal officials say offshore oil and gas workers in the Gulf of Mexico are going back to platforms and rigs that had been evacuated because of Tropical Storm Lee.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement said Monday in a news release that 232 production platforms and 24 rigs had been evacuated. That meant about 38 percent of the total 617 manned platforms and 33 percent of the 70 drilling rigs operating in the Gulf were evacuated.

BOEMRE said the evacuations had shut in 61 percent of the oil production and 46 percent of the natural gas production in the Gulf.

The rigs and platforms will be inspected for damage and then brought back online.

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Residents return to flood-damaged homes in Miss. (AP)

CUTOFF, Miss. – Javier Campos returned to his neighborhood for the first time in nearly a month Monday to find the serene little enclave of fishing camps and homes a putrid, mud-caked mess after the historic flooding of the Mississippi River.

"It's too late for praying now," he said, stomping through the sludge.

Like Campos, many residents got their first glimpse Monday of what's left of Cutoff, an unincorporated community on the unprotected side of the river in Mississippi's Tunica County.

Authorities had already used machinery to remove dead deer and propane tanks from roads, but a thick layer of mud coated piles of debris and almost everything else in sight. Some of the houses, most built on stilts on the banks of Tunica Lake, had been flooded nearly to their attics. Only five out of 350 structures didn't flood.

The tally of the damage continues here, but at least a dozen houses are a total loss, and maybe more, with one left laying on its side.

Inspectors let some residents return home over the weekend, but most were seeing the destruction Monday for the first time.

Campos, a 32-year-old handyman, still couldn't quite get to his own home. So he pulled on a pair of gloves and started helping a neighbor salvage what he could.

"It's terrible, man. Everybody needs help," Campos said. "So I'm helping my neighbors, and when I can get back to my house, maybe they will help me."

Despite the devastation, Tunica County Planning Director Pepper Bradford said opening the last sections of the community Monday was a milestone for the roughly 225 households that are permanent residences in a series of fishing camps.

But, he said, danger is lurking.

"My building inspectors are packing heat," Bradford said. "And they have shot some snakes."

The Mississippi River displaced thousands on its march to the sea, despite dramatic action to stem the losses. The rising waters led the Army Corps of Engineers to blow up a Missouri levee to save Midwest communities and open spillways in Louisiana to lessen the risk in heavily populated places like New Orleans.

Places like Cutoff may never be the same. The community sprang from fishing camps that date back decades. It was a place where each of the four camps had a bar and grill, and most people traveled on golf carts. Most of the homes here had been built before new federal and county regulations. If they are substantially damaged, they'll have to be elevated, which will cost too much for many residents.

"I don't know if I can save it," said 47-year-old Diane Austin, who spent Monday wearing yellow rubber gloves and a surgical mask while dragging soiled furniture from her home.

"When I first saw it, I thought, `Yeah, it's bad.' Now that I'm taking stuff out, it's worse," she said.

Scenes like this could play out repeatedly in the coming weeks. Water from the river is expected to remain high into the summer in some places, including downriver in Vicksburg, Miss., where hundreds of people are still displaced.

"It humbles you," said 68-year-old Robert Ivy, a retired truck driver who has lived for about 3 years in Cutoff.

"When you walk in and see all that, you really don't know how in the world you are going to get through it," he said.

The flood also devastated thousands of acres of farmland in Mississippi and Louisiana, and it isn't over yet. The Atchafalaya River in southern Louisiana, overflowing with Mississippi water diverted through the Morganza spillway, was expected to crest Monday at Morgan City. It will be the final place along the Mississippi River system to get the highest water.

Meanwhile, an environmental crisis could be on the horizon in southern Louisiana. The fresh water rolling into the Gulf of Mexico could pose a serious setback for the badly damaged oyster industry, struggling to recover from last year's BP oil spill. Too much fresh water can kill oysters.

"The worst is not over yet," said John Tesvich, the chairman of the Louisiana Oyster Task Force, an industry group. "We're starting to see fresh water in various areas. The next couple of weeks will be critical."

The floodwaters have been the highest on record at more than half of the gauges along the fortress-like levee system built up between Missouri and Louisiana. Sandbags and emergency barriers have been placed around towns, at gaps in the levee system, and around businesses, power facilities and other critical infrastructure.

So far, the Army Corps of Engineers is confident its flood system will hold up. And it's performed well so far, though crews up and down the river have had to chase sand boils — where water undercuts the levee and land on the other side seems to boil.

There will be a lot to watch over the coming weeks. Engineers say levees are weakened when floodwaters recede and erode the earthen ramparts. Also, there is the possibility for water levels to rise again as more storms dump water into the Mississippi River valley.

At the southern end of the Atchafalaya River, there was a guarded sense of relief last week as the corps began closing bays at the Morganza spillway, source of the water threatening Morgan City, an oil and seafood town of about 10,000 people.

The Atchafalaya's expected crest Monday was forecast to reach levels not seen since the landmark 1973 flooding in the Mississippi Valley. Morgan City was on guard as the crest approached.

Morgan City Mayor Tim Matte said the 24-foot floodwall protecting the city was doing its job. The larger fear, he said, was the possible overtopping of levees at Lake Palourde as a result of backwater flooding.

"Within a day or so of (the cresting) you'd pretty well be convinced, OK, we're not going to have an overtopping. Now, all we need to do is make sure our levees are in good shape," he said.

The American Waterways Operators, which represents the U.S. barge industry, said conditions are slowly returning to normal on the Mississippi. However, traffic restrictions, including the number of barges that can be towed at once, remain in effect, said AWO spokeswoman Anne Burns. Most of the backup has cleared, but traffic is still moving slowly to ensure the levees aren't damaged, she said.

Barges haul grain and other farm products from the Midwest to the Port of South Louisiana, where they are loaded on ocean-going vessels for exports or stored in grain elevators to await shipping.

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