A southbound semitruck rolled Monday morning on U.S. 285 over on Kenosha Pass, closing the highway for a while until it was fully cleared a little before 2 p.m.
The Colorado State Patrol got the call about a jackknifed truck roughly 18 miles north of Fairplay around 9:40 a.m.
Sgt. Ivan Alvarado said the truck was pulled off the road and a hazardous-materials crew was on its way to the crash site to clean up fuel leaking from the gas tank. Traffic was closed in both directions until about noon, when the northbound lane reopened.
The highway was fully reopened about a couple of hours later.
The driver didn’t complain of any injuries, Alvarado said. The cause of the crash is under investigation.
Four children and a woman were injured Tuesday afternoon in a crash that temporarily shut down U.S. 285 in Colorado’s mountains, according to the state patrol.
Colorado State Patrol troopers responded to a three-car crash on U.S. 285 near Bailey at about 1 p.m. Tuesday, according to a news release from the agency.
A 2017 Kia and a 2020 Volkswagen Tiguan crashed head-on into each other on the highway, and then a 2022 Chevrolet Tahoe hit the two, state patrol officials said.
Paramedics took four children of unknown ages and an unidentified woman to hospitals, according to the release. The children were taken “as a precautionary measure,” but the woman had what first responders believed were serious injuries.
No other injuries were reported by state patrol officials.
U.S. 285 was shut in both directions shortly after the crash, a closure that ran from Bulldogger Road to Roland Valley Drive, about 11 miles south of Aspen Park, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation. The highway’s southbound lanes reopened at about 2 p.m., and the northbound lanes reopened at 2:30 p.m., according to the agency.
Information on the cause of the crash was not available Tuesday.
A woman was seriously injured in a hit-and-run crash while trying to flag down help along U.S. 285 in Park County, according to the Colorado State Patrol.
Troopers responded to the crash at 11:45 p.m. near mile 197, which is south of Jefferson between Bailey and Fairplay.
The woman, who was driving a 2002 Toyota Tacoma, was airlifted to the hospital after the crash, and further information about her condition was not available.
Investigators are looking for a black Volvo S60 with temporary tags that fled the scene. The vehicle, a 2011-2014 model, may have damage to the passenger side mirror.
Anyone with information about the crash can contact state patrol dispatch at 303-239-4501 and reference case number 2A251458.
CLEAR CREEK COUNTY, Colo. — Coloradans are already heading to the high country, hoping to catch those first golden leaves of the season.
Before you load up the car, though, county leaders have a friendly reminder – take in the view, but do it safely.
The first signs of fall are blazing bright on Guanella Pass.
The Iluardo family drove from Denver to snap some family pictures.
“We just came up here because the leaves are gorgeous,” said Natalia Iluardo.
The Aumont family made the trek from Parker to hike and get an early start on leaf peeping.
“There was hardly any traffic. It was luxurious traveling on I-70, just cruising at normal speed,” said Doug Aumont.
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🍁 Leaf it to Colorado 🍁 Your guide to the fall foliage frenzy
But if you’ve gone leaf peeping on Guanella Pass in prior years, you know just how bad traffic can get.
“There were people parked all up and down the street, and I know getting back home was like bumper to bumper the entire way,” Aumont recalled.
The Park County Sheriff’s Office reports that it observed approximately 10,000 vehicles on Guanella Pass Road within three hours last year.
“This is a narrow two-lane mountain pass, and it’s not capable of handling that type of traffic volume,” said Park County Undersheriff Steve Spodyak.
It’s why Clear Creek and Park County officials are asking the public to “PEEP” responsibly by doing the following:
Parking in designated parking areas only. This includes parking lots, places with green “Parking” signs, or in pull-offs that are not marked “No Parking.” Parking is NOT allowed on the side of the roadway within 1/2 mile of the summit. Parking is also not allowed on the roadway itself. Vehicles parked in a pull-off must be completely off the roadway. No part of the vehicle can be on or in the roadway when parked.
Expecting heavy traffic. Know Before You Go by checking cotrip.org for traffic delays on I-70 (Hwy 285). Cell phone map apps should also show traffic delays along routes to Guanella Pass.
Exercising patience. Heavy traffic and delays can cause frustration, impatience, and aggression. Take a break by visiting a nearby park, shopping in town, or dining at a local restaurant.
Planning ahead. Consider visiting on a weekday (Monday – Thursday). Weekends have about 2.5x more visitors than weekdays. In the event of heavy traffic, bring plenty of water, food, and other necessary supplies.
Although the leaves haven’t peaked just yet, safety measures are already being enforced.
Denver7 spotted six patrol units keeping tabs on the road on Sunday morning.
Those sheriff’s deputies are keeping an eye out for anyone blocking the roadway.
Vehicles that are partially blocking the road could face a fine of $87.50.
🍁 Watch Stacy Donaldson’a full fall foliage forecast in the player below |
Stacy Donaldson’a full fall foliage forecast
Any vehicles illegally parked on the roadway will be towed at the owner’s expense.
Clear Creek County says transportation will be available for drivers of towed vehicles to the tow lot at Geneva Basin.
These consequences are meant to reinforce public safety in nearby mountain communities.
“Seconds matter in emergencies, as we all know. Any blocked road could be the difference between life and death in these situations,” said Park County Commissioner Jason Gemmer.
Leaf peepers have already noticed the crackdown.
“It was funny how they had a tow truck even parked out [on Guanella Pass Road] to remind you, hey, we’re going to tow you if you park illegally this year,” said Aumont.
At the end of the day, county leaders said it’s all about keeping you safe for you to make the most of your fall memories.
“Restaurants are open, stores are open, and if we spread it out, the experience for everybody will be much better,” said Clear Creek County Sheriff Matt Harris.
Fall foliage frenzy sparks Guanella Pass crackdown
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PARK COUNTY, Colo. — The Park County Sheriff’s Office arrested a man for allegedly driving into a crowd of anti-Trump protesters in Bailey on Monday.
No injuries were reported.
The sheriff’s office said Hawk Nosaka, 49, was driving a black pickup truck and allegedly drove into the crowd on the shoulder of US Highway 285, near the intersection of Rosalie Road.
Nosaka was taken into custody at his Bailey home immediately following the incident.
It’s unclear what, if anything, prompted the alleged attempted vehicular assault.
Nosaka was booked into the Park County Jail on the charges of criminal attempt (vehicular assault), reckless endangerment, and reckless driving.
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Colorado’s 7th Congressional District, centered on suburban Jefferson County, hasn’t had a Republican in the seat since Bob Beauprez left Congress nearly 20 years ago.
But Sergei Matveyuk, an antiques repairman from Golden and the GOP contender for the seat in the Nov. 5 election, urges voters not to count him out in his battle with incumbent Brittany Pettersen. The first-term Democratic congresswoman is seeking reelection.
“People are hurting economically,” Matveyuk, 57, told The Denver Post. “They want someone who feels the pain.”
He’s running in a once-battleground district that has turned decidedly blue in the last decade or so, with Democratic former Rep. Ed Perlmutter winning election eight times running, until his retirement announcement in 2022 ushered in an open race.
Pettersen, 42, a former state lawmaker from Lakewood, won the 2022 election by 16 percentage points over Republican Army veteran Erik Aadland. The bulk of the district’s electorate calls left-leaning Jefferson and Broomfield counties home, while redder areas in the district — such as Teller, Custer and Fremont counties — simply don’t have the populations to give Matveyuk a sizable boost.
As of Sept. 30, Pettersen had raised more than $2.2 million this cycle, compared to about $35,000 collected by Matveyuk, according to campaign finance filings. There are two minor party candidates on the ballot this time: Former state lawmaker Ron Tupa is running on the Unity Party of Colorado ticket, while Patrick Bohan is running as the Libertarian candidate.
Matveyuk, a political neophyte, said that as a small business owner, the historically high inflation of the last two years has hurt those like him who are particularly sensitive to escalating prices. But it’s his personal story that he thinks will resonate with voters in the current political climate, in which border policy has taken center stage. Matveyuk, who is of Polish descent, and his family left the Soviet Bloc in the late 1980s after experiencing life under communist rule and immigrated to the United States.
“As an immigrant myself, I know how hard it is to start a new life — but it has to be legal,” he said.
Matveyuk doesn’t echo former President Donald Trump’s calls for mass deportations but says migrants who “are hurting our people and committing crimes need to be deported, for sure.”
“We need immigration reform — 40 years ago we had a regulated border and now we have a porous border,” he said.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data through August, there have been more than 8.6 million migrant “encounters” at the southern U.S. border since President Joe Biden took office in 2021. That influx has prompted many big city mayors across the country, including Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, to cut city services to pay for migrant housing and plead for help from the federal government.
Pettersen acknowledged that the U.S. asylum system is “absolutely outdated.” But many of the arriving migrants are filling jobs that businesses in the district, like nursing homes, are desperate to staff, she said.
Making people wait years before getting work permits is an unworkable policy, Pettersen said.
“We don’t have the people in the U.S. to meet our economic needs,” she said. “We need legal pathways based on economic need.”
Though Pettersen is in the minority party in the U.S. House, a bill she sponsored was recently signed into law by Biden. It directs the federal government to study and report on illicit financing associated with synthetic drug trafficking.
Last month, she introduced a bill that seeks to incentivize more states to offer substance use treatment through Medicaid, six years after she sponsored a bill in the state House requiring Colorado to provide that care. Pettersen has often spoken publicly of the struggles her mother faced battling opioid addiction.
If reelected, she said in The Denver Post’s candidate questionnaire that she would work to protect abortion rights and to address the opioid epidemic. Her top priority would be “modernizing our tax code to rebuild the middle class.”
“We need to lower costs by reinvesting in access to affordable housing, childcare, health care, and higher education,” she wrote.
Coloradans looking to buy homes or simply hold onto their property face a barrage of challenges: a white-hot real estate market, high interest rates and soaring property taxes. You can add surging home insurance rates to the pile of problems eroding the landscape of affordable housing options.
Colorado homeowners are reporting premium increases ranging from roughly 30% to more than 130% in just the past few years. People are getting the bad news that their policies won’t be renewed. Some insurance companies are deciding not to write new policies to cut their risks.
And condo owners are getting hit with special assessments and higher dues because premiums are skyrocketing for homeowners associations. The groups must often resort to non-standard carriers, which typically charge sky-high rates for lesser coverage.
“We truly have the hardest market that we’ve seen in a generation for property insurance,” said Carole Walker, executive director of the trade organization Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association.
Colorado’s not alone. Inflation, higher home costs and the rising number and severity of natural disasters and wildfires are pushing up insurance costs. The average premium rate increase nationwide in 2023 was 11.3%, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
But Colorado’s recent increases stand out. The state was one of three with the biggest cumulative change in rates 2018-2023. Colorado logged a 57.9% jump, just behind Texas at 59.9%. Arizona saw a 52.9% increase.
A convergence of factors is driving the run-up in costs, Walker said. Higher inflation is one of those. “You have everything that insurance pays for going up in cost.”
Building materials are more expensive. Labor costs are up and labor shortages create delays and add to the expense. Walker said insurance-related lawsuits also help push up premiums.
An even larger force is the fallout from increasingly costly wildfires, hail storms and other disasters. Insurance companies doing business in Colorado reported the fourth-highest losses in the country for five years, according to data compiled for a 2023 report by the Colorado Division of Insurance.
“I hate to say it, but we all likely need to adjust to higher premiums over the long term,” Walker said.
The effects of the mounting risks are being felt by a lesser known, but crucial link in the chain that connects to homeowners: the reinsurance market. Reinsurers are typically large, global companies that provide insurance to insurance companies to help spread the risk.
“The international impact of climate change, of increasing climate disasters, the severity of those disasters is causing reinsurers to consider their risk, reduce their exposure or increase their premiums,” said Vince Plymell, spokesman for the insurance division.
As a result, the effects of hurricanes and earthquakes in other parts of the country or world can eventually show up in a Colorado homeowner’s insurance bill, said Jason Lapham, the state’s deputy commissioner for property and casualty insurance.
Closer to home are the growing risks of wildfire and hail storms. Colorado is second in the nation for hail-damage claims and second only to California for the number of homes at risk from wildfires. Colorado hasn’t seen the kind of wide scale refusal of companies to write new policies that California has, but Lapham said there is a trend of some companies not re-upping policies in areas prone to wildfires or other disasters or taking “a pause” on new clients.
“It doesn’t mean they’re leaving the state entirely, but for those people who are affected, the effect is the same,” Lapham said.
State officials don’t have a lot of insight into the modeling used by companies to decide which areas are too risky to insure, Lapham said. “We’re focused on getting a better understanding and creating transparency, not just for us but also for policy holders.”
Levi Ware, project manager from Red Hawk Roofing company from Denver, takes pictures of a roof damaged by large hail and a tornado along Chesapeake Street in Highlands Ranch on June 23, 2023. A rare tornado hit the Highlands Ranch area Thursday afternoon causing damage to roofs and uprooting large trees. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
What’s worse than rising premiums?
There were plenty of insurance options for Bryan Watts and his wife when they bought a house in Guffey in Park County, west of Cripple Creek. The premium was about $2,000 in 2019 and rose gradually to $2,522 for the 2023-2024 policy year.
“Things changed dramatically in August 2023 when we received a notice of non-renewal at the policy maturity of June 2024,” Watts said. “I called them and was told it was simply due to wildfire risk.”
Watts tried to reason with the company, saying he had done a lot of work to reduce threats from wildfire. He offered to send pictures of his home or show an inspector around his property. But the insurer told him that it wasn’t going to cover homes in his zip code.
“I thought, ‘Well, no big deal. I’ll just move to another carrier,’” Watts said. “I had no idea how bad it had gotten just in the last year or two.”
A broker Watts worked with found only nonstandard insurers willing to cover his home. The insurers might take on customers that more traditional companies consider too risky, but the coverage comes at a high price. In Watts’ case, the quote was for nearly $35,000.
After making calls on his own, Watts found one of the big-name companies willing to write a policy for $4,800. A hang-up for companies that turned him down was that the nearest fire station is about 16 miles from his home. “They’re looking for substations that are 10 miles or closer,” Watts said.
Like a lot of people, Watts has a mortgage on his house, which means he needs to carry insurance. “There are going to be very few people who are able to live out here without a mortgage,” he said.
Escalating home insurance premiums and companies scaling back coverage are creating angst in the real estate industry. Brian Tanner, vice president of public policy for the Colorado Association of Realtors, said agents are seeing properties lose coverage or unable to find insurance.
“All of this together is incredibly problematic for a market that we already know is strained. We need more available units,” Tanner said. “If we have existing residences that cannot secure insurance, that is absolutely a market disruptor.”
Real estate agents are scrambling to help clients to find coverage, Tanner said. He is concerned about rising rates on people on fixed incomes.
The state is creating an insurer of last resort, officially called the Fair Access to Insurance Requirements, which will be paid for by assessments on the insurance industry. But it won’t be up and running until 2025 and applicants must have been turned down by at least three carriers.
Walker said the goal is to relieve pressure on the standard carriers by shifting some of the high risks, which the industry hopes will stabilize the market.
“Everybody I talk to is talking about the property insurance issue,” said Sarah Thorsteinson, CEO of the Altitude Realtors association, which includes Summit and Routt counties.
Real estate agents working in mountain communities started looking at the effect of wildfire risks on home insurance rates around 2012. That’s when the association started education and fire-mitigation programs for members and the public to head off possible mandates it worried could increase costs for buyers and sellers.
Thorsteinson represents property owners as a non-voting member of the Colorado Fire Commission. She said the association’s biggest concern with rising insurance premiums is housing affordability.
The ongoing struggle by homeowners associations, HOAs, to secure insurance has grown tougher, Thorsteinson said. She has heard of HOA dues doubling and tripling for condo owners in her area after insurance premiums shot up.
“We’ve seen increases of 100% or more for HOA policies,” said Lapham with the state insurance division.
Even before the recent rate increases, it was common for HOAs to have to seek providers in the non-standard market, also called the surplus lines market. “My guess is that it’s more common now than it has been simply because of the tightening of the market generally,” Lapham said.
Many of the more well-known insurers have gotten out of the condo business, Walker said, leaving the nonstandard carriers, whose policies are more expensive and have higher deductibles.
The more traditional insurers exited in part because of fears around construction-related lawsuits by HOAs. A 2017 law that requires a majority of homeowners to approve pursuing a lawsuit rather than just the HOA board has done little to coax insurers to write policies for condo buildings.
In some cases, HOA boards, trying to avoid raising dues, have put off infrastructure improvements and maintenance, making insurers nervous about the liabilities, Walker said.
The Hiland Hills Townhomes HOA was able to line up a new insurer in 2023, but had to budget for a 30% increase in premiums. Dues went up from $336 a month to $460 per unit.
“The coverage decreased overall. This year we’re budgeting for another 15% increase,” said Dmitry Gall, the HOA board president at the Denver complex.
The HOA was able to shuffle some items in the policy to hold down the increase. Gall said the association is cutting back in other areas to help pay the premium.
The HOA where Jon Christianson has a rental unit saw its insurance premium leap from the $167,000 budgeted last year to nearly $607,000. His fees doubled, “with a special assessment coming,” he said.
A letter from the HOA board that Christianson shared with The Denver Post said the previous insurance carrier got out of the Colorado market. Several companies declined to offer bids on a new policy because of the height and age of the three buildings in the complex and the fire suppression system.
Then the insurance for Christianson’s primary residence rose by 40%.
“I’ve never filed a claim. I’ve been with same insurance company for five years,” Christianson said. “This is becoming unsustainable.”
Carole Walker, the Executive Director of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Association, stands for a photo outside the residential building where she lives in Denver on May 7, 2024. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
A marathon, not a sprint
The Marshall fire, which killed two people and destroyed 1,084 homes and businesses, receives a lot of the blame for Colorado’s escalating home insurance rates. The Dec. 30, 2021, wildfire raged through Louisville, Superior and parts of unincorporated Boulder County, leaving more than $2 billion in property damage in its wake.
Walker said although the Marshall fire was a devastating event, the reasons for rising rates are more complex. For instance, more people are moving into areas along the Front Range that frequently get battered by hail. Walker said Colorado’s most expensive hail storm hit in May 2017, wreaking $2.7 billion in damage in today’s dollars.
But for Alan McDaniel, who has an insurance agency in Castle Rock, the threat of wildfire is the primary obstacle when looking for ways to get a handle on rising insurance costs.
“I’m lucky enough that the carrier I mostly use, Farmers Insurance, isn’t not renewing policies, but others are,” McDaniel said.
He has worked with homeowners around Larkspur and other areas deemed too risky for wildfires by some insurers. “You have to fill out a fire-mitigation plan, take pictures and prove to my underwriter that it’s worth taking on because they’ve done all the steps they need to do,” McDaniel said.
McDaniel and other insurance agents have met with fire agencies to learn more about reducing wildfire risks and programs like Firewise, a national program overseen by the state forest service in Colorado. A goal is to lower homeowners’ premiums by making changes.
“In light of the Marshall fire, we did get inquiries from some homeowners and associations that were facing increased premiums as well as potentially losing coverage,” said Bart Chambers, the fire marshal for the Castle Rock Fire and Rescue Department.
Chambers has met with insurance agents to help them understand the steps needed to better protect homes and businesses. The fire department collaborates with town planners on decreasing wildfire threats and hopes to increase the number of certified Firewise neighborhoods in Castle Rock.
“This is a marathon, not a sprint,” Chambers said. “It needs to be maintained and followed through continuously.”
Chambers spent 30 years with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
“We saw that on the front end there and we’re seeing it nationally now 20 years later, not only with wildfires but also with natural disasters,” Chambers said. “In Colorado, we can look at other people’s losses and make it better locally.”
