LARIMER COUNTY, Colo. — Family and friends identified a mother and her 12-year-old daughter who drowned Friday when flash flooding in the Cameron Peak burn scar swept away their camp trailer.
Lisa Schilling, 37, and her daughter Lily Arguello, both of Littleton, died in the flash flood in the Buckhorn area.
A GoFundMe page has been created to help the family with ongoing expenses. A family spokesperson, Lacey Gutzke, confirmed the validity of the GoFundMe to 9NEWS.
Schilling and Lily's bodies were recovered Friday evening, according to the Larimer County Sheriff's Office.
> Video above: Residents start cleanup after flash flooding over Cameron Peak burn scar
Schilling was a fourth-grade teacher at Deane Elementary School in Lakewood, according to Jeffco Public Schools.
"Teaching was her passion," Schilling's sister, Annette Vasquez, writes in the GoFundMe. "She loved her students and loved the work she did. Lisa was a kind-hearted person who always saw the positive in life."
Her husband and Lily's father, Aaron, "had his entire life taken from him in a matter of minutes," Vasquez writes.
Lily was a rising eighth-grader at Deer Creek Middle School. She was weeks away from her 13th birthday, Gutzke said.
"Like her mom, she was kind-hearted," Vasquez writes. "Both she and her mom were taken too soon. Lily had so much life to live and so many more lives to touch."
The tragedy happened on what the family calls "our land" – a place where they camped in summers, going back decades. This was their first camping trip there since the Cameron Peak Fire two years ago, Vasquez writes.
When rain poured down Friday afternoon, the creek rose several inches. Then the rain stopped and they heard a loud rumble.
"We looked up the creek to see a mountain of trees, rocks, mud and water rushing toward us," Vasquez writes. "In a moment, the trailer where Lisa, Lily and their two dogs were, was swept away and overtaken by the rush of the flood."
Other family members were rescued later that evening, Vasquez writes.
Jeffco Public Schools released the following statement:
"The Jeffco Public Schools community is grieving the passing of one of our beloved teachers, Lisa Schilling, and her daughter, Lily, who died unexpectedly over the weekend. Mrs. Schilling was a compassionate and dedicated educator that deeply loved her students, colleagues, and family. She was a fourth grade teacher at Deane Elementary School in Lakewood and completed her student teaching there as well. Mrs. Schilling was known for her intentionality as an educator and colleague, routinely going above and beyond to support students and other teachers. Jeffco Public Schools is grateful for her contributions and extends our deepest sympathies to her family and friends."
A Larimer County Sheriff's Office spokesperson also said a cabin in the 700 block of Granite Road was destroyed in the flood but that everyone from the cabin had been accounted for. The area was east of Crystal Mountain along Sheep Creek.
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