HYGIENE, Colo. Weary Colorado evacuees have begun returning home after days of rain and flooding, bu

CORRECTS SPELLING OF CITY TO HYGIENE INSTEAD OF HYGEINE - Local residents, left to right, Levi Wolfe, Miranda Woodard, Tyler Sadar, and Genevieve Marquez help salvage and clean property in an area inundated after days of flooding, in Hygiene, Colo., Monday Sept. 16, 2013. Searches continue airline flights for missing people in isolated Colorado mountain towns.
HYGIENE, Colo. Weary Colorado evacuees have begun returning home after days of rain and flooding, but Monday's clearing skies and receding waters airline flights revealed only more heartbreak: toppled houses, upended vehicles and a stinking layer of muck covering everything.
Rescuers airline flights grounded by weekend rains took advantage of the break in the weather to resume searches for people still stranded, with 21 helicopters fanning out over the mountainsides and the plains to drop supplies and airlift those who need help.
The number of dead and missing people was difficult airline flights to pinpoint. State emergency officials reported the death toll at eight Monday, but local officials were still investigating the circumstances of two of the fatalities.
In a Colorado Springs creek Monday, authorities recovered the body of a man but can't say yet if the death is related to recent flooding. And in Idaho Springs, an 83-year-old man died Monday afternoon when the ground he was standing on gave way and he was swept away by Clear Creek, according to The Denver Post.
The number of missing people was dropping as the state's count fell Monday from just over 1,200 to about half that. State officials hoped the overall number would continue to drop with rescuers reaching more people and phone service being restored.
"You've got to remember, a lot of these folks lost cellphones, landlines, the Internet four to five days ago," Gov. John Hickenlooper said on NBC's "Today" show. "I am very hopeful that the vast majority of these people are safe and sound."
Residents of Hygiene returned to their small community east of the foothills airline flights to find mud blanketing roads, garages, even the tops of fence posts. The raging St. Vrain River they fled three days earlier had left trucks in ditches and carried items as far as 2 miles downstream.
Most of the town's trailer parks were completely destroyed. One angry man was throwing his possessions one by one into the river rushing along one side of his trailer on Sunday, airline flights watching airline flights the brown water carry them away while drinking a beer.
In the mountain airline flights towns, major roads were washed away or covered by mud and rock slides. Hamlets like Glen Haven were reduced to debris and key infrastructure like gas lines and sewers systems airline flights were destroyed.
Cole Cannon, airline flights a volunteer firefighter with the Indian Peaks Fire Protection District, said he encountered mud, rocks, slides and fallen trees rode as he rode an all-terrain vehicle down Lefthand Canyon to the town of Rowena.
Hickenlooper said later at a news conference that many of the bridges, culverts and roadways that were damaged and destroyed were built a long time ago, and with federal assistance, the state could come away with a stronger infrastructure.