LARIMER COUNTY, Colo. (KDVR) — The family of 36-year-old Lisa Schilling and 12-year-old Lily Arguello, the mother and daughter swept away during flash flooding Friday, shared the moments of what exactly happened before the tragedy.
“‘Our Land,’ as we called it, was a place we would spend our summers. It was a place we grew up; it was a place we both introduced our spouses to. We created our own families, and our kids like us grew up here. This place was special; it was our therapy. We could spend countless hours together uninterrupted by technology, phone calls or the city’s life,” Annette Vasquez, the sister-in-law to Lisa and aunt to Lily, posted on Monday.
Vasquez posted a GoFundMe with more details on what exactly happened. She said her family’s land was burned during the Cameron Peak Fire back in 2020. This trip last week was the first time they were able to return to the area.
She posted that a few family members, including Lisa and Lily, arrived on Wednesday.
“Like before, it was therapy; we played games, cooked, hiked, and did work around camp. It was what we needed!!!“ Vasquez wrote.
After rain, ‘a mountain of trees, rocks, mud and water’
On Friday, she said it started raining, causing the creek near where they were set up to camp to rise a few inches. She wrote the rain eventually passed, but that’s when tragedy struck.
“Then this loud rumble of a cracking sound was heard, and we looked up the creek to see a mountain of trees, rocks, mud and water rushing toward us. In a moment, the trailer where Lisa, Lily and their two dogs were, was swept away and overtaken by the rush of the flood. Lisa and Lily both recovered from the creek early that evening. Aaron, Jerry, Isaiah and myself were rescued from the mountain late that evening,” Vasquez wrote.
FOX31 and Channel 2 spoke on the phone with some of the family on Monday. The family declined an interview as they are still grieving, but they did share some photos of Lily and Lisa.
In the GoFundMe, the family also shared that Lisa was a fourth-grade teacher for Jeffco Public Schools. For the past five years, she worked at Deane Elementary and was transferring to Bear Creek Elementary.
Her daughter Lily, according to the GoFundMe, “attended Deer Creek Middle School and would be entering the 8th grade. Her 13th Birthday was just around the corner on the 27th of July. She had friends who she loved to spend time with and have sleepovers. Lily enjoyed being on the swim team and participating in choir.”
Lily’s dad and Lisa’s husband, Aaron Arguello, were also there during the flash flood but survived.
“My Brother Aaron, husband to Lisa and father to Lily, had his entire life taken from him in a matter of minutes,” Vasquez said.
