May 1, 2026: ICE impact on criminal cases in Colorado; Flying into rain bombs; Untold stories of '12 Tablecloths'

Summary

Colorado Matters (May 1, 2026) – ICE Impact on Criminal Cases, Rain Bombs, and '12 Tablecloths'

Hosts: Ryan Warner & Chandra Thomas Whitfield
Date: May 1, 2026
Source: Colorado Public Radio

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Episode Overview

This episode of Colorado Matters explores three major topics relevant to Colorado's people and communities:

1. The impact of ICE deportations on prosecuting serious criminal cases in Colorado and the resulting justice challenges.
2. The science, risk, and personal stories behind “rain bombs”—severe downbursts inside thunderstorms—through the eyes of an atmospheric scientist.
3. The “Twelve Tablecloths” art installation, which brings untold stories of Black domestic workers in the American West to light.

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1. ICE Deportations Disrupt Colorado Criminal Justice

Main Points & Insights

• Suspects Vanishing Before Trial: ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) removing criminal defendants before their court trials means many serious cases are disrupted and victims lose their chance at justice ([00:04]–[10:11]).
• Real-World Examples:
  • A man charged with vehicular homicide (DUI) killed a woman but was deported before trial ([01:46]–[02:12]).
  • Another man, charged with sexual assault on a child, was taken by ICE outside a Denver courthouse ([02:13]–[02:23]).
  • Most egregiously, Tomas Arenas Fuentes was deported during his trial—ICE picked him up during a lunch break before jury selection finished ([02:23]–[02:57]).

Victim and Prosecutor Concerns

• Victim's Right to Justice: DA Ann Kelly, San Luis Valley, described the result starkly:
  “The victim will never have an opportunity to see justice in her case, and he won't ever be held accountable for what he did to her.” ([02:57], Donna Lynn)

• Dismissed Cases Are Sealed: If cases are interrupted and dismissed, records are sealed, so if perpetrator returns, past allegations remain hidden ([03:16]–[04:21]).

• Constitutional Rights Unmet:
  DA John Walsh (Denver): “All we're asking is that we be given the opportunity to prosecute them... In some ways, being deported is their, you know, get out of jail free card.” ([04:56])

• Community Safety Concerns: Repeat offenders can and do return, with deportation not guaranteeing public safety ([05:14]–[05:36]):
  Brian Mason, DA, Adams & Broomfield:
  “If the federal government hinders my ability to prosecute somebody for committing a serious crime, that makes the community less safe... What happens after we have finished a case and after somebody has served their time... is no longer my responsibility.” ([05:36])

Deportation vs. Prison

• Most defendants prefer deportation over serving time in US prisons—state or federal ([06:25]–[07:15]).
• Law enforcement position: Serve time first, then deport ([07:17]–[07:34]).

Policy Changes and State/Federal Tensions

• Past Practice: Previously, ICE would defer to state courts, let cases run, then deport after sentence ([07:39]–[08:20]).
• Shifted Practice: About a year prior, ICE stopped cooperating due to Colorado’s sanctuary laws and detainer restrictions ([08:27]–[09:56]).
• Resource & Legal Barriers: ICE cites lack of resources to monitor defendants through trial ([09:56]–[10:01]).
• State Response: Ongoing frustration on both sides; local officials lobbying for changes ([10:09]).

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2. Denver Health’s Financial Squeeze Amid Federal Cutbacks

Main Points & Insights

• Denver Health—Colorado’s main safety net hospital—faces mounting financial pressures due to federal and state Medicaid cuts ([11:02]).
• Patient Demographics: 47% of patients are on Medicaid, with a significant uninsured population ([11:02], [18:00]).
• Federal Law Changes: New work requirements and decreased retroactivity make it harder to maintain coverage ([11:02]–[12:27]).
• State Medicaid Cuts: Immediate 2% provider fee cut looming ([12:47]–[14:18]).
• Community Support: Ballot Measure 2Q (2024) provided local funding, but new cuts will outweigh this benefit ([14:36]–[16:07]).
• Estimated Impact: $64 million annual budget gap—roughly equal to the revenue from Measure 2Q, but now offset by new uncompensated care burdens ([18:00]).
• Future Strategy:
  • Lobbying Congress for relief ([16:39])
  • Maximizing Medicaid re-enrollments
  • "Belt-tightening" through efficiency and technology, not worker layoffs ([18:00]–[19:39])

Notable Quote:
Donna Lynn, CEO:
“We see 280,000 patients a year. So 20,000 of them losing coverage is really, it's very significant.” ([16:07])

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3. The Power and Science of “Rain Bombs”

What are Rain Bombs?

• Also known as "microbursts," rain bombs are rapid downdrafts inside thunderstorms with hurricane-force winds and very localized heavy rain ([20:41]–[23:35]).
• Personal Experience:
  Sue Vandenheaver, atmospheric scientist:
  “On one of the particular flights... we dropped so quickly, my laptop hit the ceiling of the plane and broke. So it gives you some sense of how turbulent this kind of flying can be.” ([00:41], [21:02])

Frequency and Danger

• A 2019 field campaign recorded up to 25 microbursts in a single day around Denver ([24:20]).
• Aviation Risk: Microbursts have caused deadly aviation accidents; rapid wind shifts can be catastrophic during takeoff or landing ([24:55]–[26:05]).
• Local Legacy: Colorado-based science at NCAR and CSU was pivotal in developing detection and warning systems now standard at US airports ([26:47]–[28:17]).
• Modern Prevention: Incidents like aborted landings at DIA show the effectiveness of radar and safety advances ([28:17]).

Ongoing Research

• Field deployments in eastern Colorado, using drone arrays to directly measure microbursts in action ([29:06], [30:38]).
• Space-based Future: New "storm-chasing from space" mission (INCAS) with radar-equipped satellites to globally observe and understand these convective events ([31:00]–[32:21]).

Memorable Quote:
Sue Vandenheaver:
“When you think about it, science leading to understanding of systems, leading to implementation of instrumentation that keeps you safe.” ([28:17])

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4. "Twelve Tablecloths": Art Elevating Unheard Histories

Exhibit Background

• Artist: Chloe Duplessis
• Focus: Explores and honors lives of Black domestic workers in the West whose stories were largely omitted from the historical record ([33:57]–[39:19]).

Key Insights

• Originated from Duplessis' visit to the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana, triggering a personal and creative reckoning ([34:17]–[36:26]).
• Tablecloths as Symbol:
  Daily life for Black domestic workers included preparing 10–12 linen tablecloths per meal (about 30 per day) under extreme conditions—symbolizing unseen labor and resilience ([36:28]–[36:33]).
• Connection to Colorado:
  Colorado had enslaved people, contrary to common belief, and research has verified this, including connections to historic figures like Estes of Estes Park ([38:05]–[39:19]).

Honoring the Women

• Census data from 1890–1920 yielded stories of real women, ages 16–50; includes narratives like Laura Graham who, over time, changed her racial identity classification to escape racist strictures (“passing”) ([39:19]–[41:56]).
• Exhibit’s Symbolic Materials:
  Materials like burlap (resilience), blue gingham (domestic labor, oppression and comfort), pinto beans, dried herbs, and altar-like spaces evoke the lived experience and culinary traditions ([42:02]–[44:08]).
• Ritual of Survival:
  The use of humble or “scrap” foods links to the invention of soul food and resilient traditions among women and communities ([44:13]–[48:45]).

Memorable Quotes

• “When you think about burlap... you never have the gift of pretending it's something else... It's always brushing your skin. There's always a rawness to it...if you pull burlap, you create something that wasn't there before... and I think of women as being very similar.” —Chloe Duplessis ([42:11])
• “We want to honor them. We want to elevate their existence, their very existence... we are literally offering new scholarship and honoring stories that would not have otherwise been shared.” ([48:20])
• On sitting at a table:
  “I hope that they think about all of the ways in which women have shifted energy to ensure a measure of quality of life for those that they are serving and those that they deeply care for.” ([48:25])

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Timestamps: Key Segments

• ICE & Justice System: [00:04]–[10:11]
• Denver Health & Medicaid Cuts: [11:02]–[19:39]
• Rain Bombs & Aviation Science: [20:28]–[32:59]
• 12 Tablecloths Exhibit & Untold Histories: [33:57]–[48:45]

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Notable Quotes

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |---|---|---| | [02:57] | Donna Lynn (reciting DA Ann Kelly) | “The victim will never have an opportunity to see justice in her case, and he won't ever be held accountable for what he did to her.” | | [04:56] | John Walsh (Denver DA) | “In some ways, being deported is their, you know, get out of jail free card.” | | [05:36] | Brian Mason (DA) | “If the federal government hinders my ability to prosecute somebody for committing a serious crime, that makes the community less safe.” | | [16:07] | Donna Lynn | “We see 280,000 patients a year. So 20,000 of them losing coverage is really, it's very significant.” | | [21:02] | Sue Vandenheaver | “We dropped so quickly, my laptop hit the ceiling of the plane and broke. So it gives you some sense of how turbulent this kind of flying can be.” | | [28:17] | Sue Vandenheaver | “Science leading to understanding of systems, leading to implementation of instrumentation that keeps you safe.” | | [42:11] | Chloe Duplessis | “You never have the gift of pretending [burlap’s] something else... There's always a rawness to it. But also... if you pull burlap... you create something new. I think of women as being very similar.” | | [48:25] | Chloe Duplessis | “I hope that they think about all of the ways in which women have shifted energy to ensure a measure of quality of life for those that they are serving and those that they deeply care for.” |

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Tone and Style

• The episode blends investigative reporting with personal storytelling and expert interviews, featuring candid, heartfelt, and sometimes sobering reflections from practitioners, scholars, and artists.

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For Further Reading / Listening

• Allison Sherry’s ongoing coverage of ICE’s impact on Colorado’s justice system at CPR News ([10:12])
• John Daly’s health reporting on Denver Health & other at-risk hospitals ([19:39])
• Nova’s PBS “Rainbombs” documentary featuring Sue Vandenheaver ([33:10])
• "Twelve Tablecloths" runs at the Fort Garland Museum and Cultural Center through May 30 ([48:48])

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Episode team credits omitted per summary guidelines.

Transcript

[Ryan Warner]

ICE deportations mean criminal suspects in Colorado are not always held accountable.

[Donna Lynn]

The victim will never have an opportunity to see justice in her case.

[John Walsh]

In some ways, being deported is their, you know, get out of jail free card.

[Ryan Warner]

Then Denver Health serves people across the state as a safety net hospital, which makes it particularly vulnerable to federal cuts.

[Donna Lynn]

We are under pressure. 47% of our patients are on Medicaid. We still also have a pretty significant portion that are completely uninsured.

[Ryan Warner]

And she flies directly into storms within a storm to keep us safe from rain bombs.

[Sue Vandenheaver]

And on one of the particular flights that I'm thinking of, we dropped so quickly, my laptop hit the ceiling of the plane and broke. So it gives you some sense of how turbulent this kind of flying can be.

[Ryan Warner]

This is Colorado Matters from CPR News and krcc. I'm Ryan Warner. People charged with serious crimes in Colorado are disappearing before their court dates, not because they've absconded, but because ICE picks them up and deports them. This new reporting comes from CPR justice reporter Allison Sherry, who has pored over court documents, spoken with district attorneys across the state. She finds dozens of serious criminal cases have been disrupted by deportations and. Hi, Alison.

[Allison Sherry]

Hi, Ryan.

[Ryan Warner]

Das are frustrated, I understand, with ICE because their defendants vanish before their criminal trials play out. Maybe give us a few real world examples of this happening.

[Allison Sherry]

Yeah, I mean, we have lots and lots of examples. There was a guy who was driving the wrong way on us 36 going out to Boulder from Denver. He. He was under the influence of alcohol. He crashed into a car. It was driven by a mother of two teenagers, and she ultimately died. They had charged him with vehicular homicide, and then ICE, in a matter of about 12 days, deported him before they had any of the trials start to play out.

[Ryan Warner]

Whoa.

[Allison Sherry]

There was a guy in Denver who was grabbed off the street outside of the courthouse, who was charged with sex assault on a child. And then there's the story of Tomas Arenas Fuentes in the San Luis Valley.

[Ryan Warner]

Yeah. What happened with him?

[Allison Sherry]

So he's an egregious story because he was actually deported in the middle of his trial. He was charged with felony sexual assault after allegedly assaulting a woman who was sleeping on the couch in his home. And it took a little while to get to trial on this case. There was some DNA evidence that took a while to get, but eventually they got him in and he was out on bond, but he was there. He was with his attorneys. He was participating in his own defense. And they broke for lunch during jury selection, and ICE picked him up on the lunch hour.

[Donna Lynn]

So the victim will never have an opportunity to see justice in her case, and he won't ever be held accountable for what he did to her.

[Allison Sherry]

That's Ann Kelly. She's the district attorney for the San Luis Valley.

[Ryan Warner]

And what is she fundamentally worried about here? That Fuentes is a public safety threat in another country?

[Allison Sherry]

I mean, this is a very excellent question. This is the nuance of some of these arguments, which is why I really like to think about the nuance on this stuff. You know, Fuentes is not a hugely sympathetic person. These aren't people getting deported who are like the kids in bunny hats with their parents. So it's kind of like you look at this and you say, why not just give them the heave ho, get them out of this country. We don't want them here. But there are some problems with that. It kind of imagines a world where we don't have any shared border and these people can't easily come back. And even when I brought this up to ice, they're basically saying, look, our border's closed now. Crossings are at a minimum every day. And I think that's right. But what about in a year? What about in two years or five years? You know, policies and politics change. The other thing I'll point out is that Colorado has a law that seals all dismissed cases. So in the case of Fuentes, a judge has dismissed that case. He's gone, he cannot be tried. That means if he does come back, no one will ever know about this. It's all sealed away. And, you know, I think that's a problem for justice, too.

[Ryan Warner]

Fascinating that a case interrupted gets dismissed and therefore erased to some extent. You know, there's also a victim's right to have a day in court to see their alleged perpetrator brought to justice. Isn't that part of this?

[Allison Sherry]

Yeah, I mean, the DAs would say that, that that's one of the very big main things, especially with these violent crimes, is that it is a constitutional right to be present and participatory in all stages of the criminal justice proceedings. That's definitely not happening. This is Denver DA John Walsh talking about that.

[John Walsh]

All we're asking is that we be given the opportunity to prosecute them. You know, some of these offenses are very serious. They should spend time in prison before they're going to get deported. In some ways, being deported is their, you know, get out of jail free card.

[Ryan Warner]

What else do DAs point out among their concerns?

[Allison Sherry]

Well, and we kind of talked about this a little bit but they're very worried about these defendants coming back and hurting someone else. A lot of them mentioned that they've seen repeat offenders in the system, people who've gotten deported, and then they come back that just deporting someone is no guarantee that they're out of your hair forever. You know, this is Brian Mason, the DA in Adams in Broomfield county, and he's talking about how this hurts American public safety.

[Brian Mason]

If the federal government hinders my ability to prosecute somebody for committing a serious crime, that makes the community less safe. It just does. And anybody who says that they care about community safety at any level of government doesn't mean it if they're not allowing district attorneys like me to do our jobs. What happens after we have finished a case and after somebody has served their time, if they are sentenced to time in prison or jail is no longer my responsibility?

[Ryan Warner]

I want to dive into the punishment part. If these suspects were convicted and sentenced to prison for their crimes, is that better or worse than getting deported? I mean, deportation is definitely a form of punishment as well, to some extent, yes.

[Allison Sherry]

I think given the option to be deported or not be deported and be free to live in the United States, most people would take the latter. But I think given the option to be deported or spend three years in the Sterling Correctional Facility, I think nine out of 10 defendants would probably take the former. You know, especially since the way it usually worked before was that they served their prison time and then they were deported afterwards. So it's a little bit of an inevitability anyway. And, you know, I don't think that this is probably universal, but I have been covering federal court cases against Venezuelans. And in the sentencing part of the cases I've been covering, every single one of the men have said, please send me back. Please don't send me to federal prison. I'm good. Like, I got it. Like, just send me home. So I think, you know, just anecdotally, and seeing what has played out in the last 16 months on this, most people would favor deportation over prison.

[Ryan Warner]

It's a fascinating thing if, in a way, if you're tough on crime, then you actually want people here to stay and face their punishment.

[Allison Sherry]

Right. And I think what law enforcement would say is, and if they get deported after they have faced their punishment, that's fine. That's not on us. That's totally out of our hands.

[Ryan Warner]

This is not an either or proposition.

[Allison Sherry]

Exactly, by the way.

[Ryan Warner]

But it is a timing question.

[Allison Sherry]

Exactly.

[Ryan Warner]

And I mean, how did this used to work? Just a Reminder of not that long ago.

[Allison Sherry]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, for decades, it worked the same way. Where it wasn't uncommon for ICE to pick up somebody who was out on bond, you know, facing criminal charges. That is not an uncommon thing. They would then honor what's called a writ, which is a judge's order to have that person come back to court. So ICE would bring them back to court, let them go through their arraignment, their trial, even send them to state prison. And then they'd put a little detainer or a note to the Department of Corrections and say, when this person's out, let us know. We'll come pick them up and we'll deport them.

[Ryan Warner]

There was deference.

[Allison Sherry]

Yes, there was deference, and there was respect, and everybody kind of worked together fine. And that halted about a year ago.

[Ryan Warner]

Is this Colorado specific? I mean, are there states where ICE remains deferential to sort of local law enforcement and justice?

[Allison Sherry]

I think ICE would say yes, there are states where they cooperate more with law enforcement, but those are states that don't have some of the laws in place that Colorado does, which limits the communication that local law enforcement can have with ice. So for years, there's been a ban on detainers here, which is when ICE asks jails to hold people for them for longer than their sentence or after they've posted a bond.

[Ryan Warner]

So ICE would say, this is a function of you, Colorado being a sanctuary state.

[Allison Sherry]

That's right.

[Ryan Warner]

With sanctuary jurisdictions.

[Allison Sherry]

That's right. And so how it worked was Colorado never honored detainers. Now even some sheriffs are afraid. There's been some more laws that have passed, and now some sheriffs are even afraid to tell ICE that someone's being let out on bond. For example, they'll say, oh, this guy posted a bond. You're interested in him. Come get him in 30 minutes, or whatever. Some sheriffs aren't even doing that anymore. They think it's against state law. ICE would say, this is all just like, you guys are not, you know, working with us, so we're not going to work with you. So it's definitely kind of a rising tit for tat. And I think the sheriffs are very frustrated. I think ICE is frustrated. I think ICE is like, we can't, you know, we can't guarantee that we're going to get them back if we let them go participate in a criminal trial. And I said, well, why wouldn't you just sit with them while they're in the middle of their criminal trial? And I think they would say we don't have the resources for that.

[Ryan Warner]

Fascinating. I imagine there's more you want to know about this, too.

[Allison Sherry]

You're going to keep they have resources, Ryan. They've been given billions of dollars by Congress to increase staffing and presence around the United States.

[Ryan Warner]

So thanks so much, Allison.

[Allison Sherry]

You're welcome.

[Ryan Warner]

CPR justice reporter Allison Sherry. Her coverage [e-mail] and we'll be right back to check in on the health of Denver Health. This is Colorado Matters from CPR News. It's Colorado Matters from CPR News. I'm Ryan Warner. Nine hospitals in Colorado may cut back on care or close their doors altogether due to federal rollbacks. That's according to an analysis by the nonprofit consumer group Public Citizen. Denver Health is on that list. While it's based in Denver, it actually serves people in just about every county of Colorado as the state's flagship safety net. Hospital CEO Donna Lynn told our health reporter John Daly that while her hospital faces challenges, it's not in danger of closing.

[Donna Lynn]

We are under pressure. 47% of our patients are on Medicaid. We also enroll people into Medicaid. And HR1 beginning in January is going to mean that they have to come in with work requirement documentation, that they're working 80 hours a month, and they also have to do that twice a year and we lose some retroactivity. I like to use the example, let's say we enrolled somebody on January 1st, but the paperwork wasn't processed. We used to have 90 days so you could go back and let's say they were in the hospital on that day or in a clinic. Now that HR1 shortens that to 30. So those are the three big things that impact us. And because we have so many patients, we're certainly worried about it. In terms of the report, though, I would say that, first of all, we're not in any danger of cutting services or closing. So I think it was right for the report and certainly for Senator Inlooper to raise the concerns about federal funding. But today we're not planning any of those things. And in fact, we're trying to, you know, work with Senator Hickenlooper, Senator Bennett, others in our congressional delegation to see if there's other solutions to some of these cuts. But they will be devastating to organizations that are serving a lot of patients who are on Medicaid.

[John Daly]

I think some people might have been surprised. I was, you know, covering the health beat to see Denver Health on that list because we've seen other prior lists from other organizations that are kind of similar. And I haven't seen Denver Health make the list of the ones that the group considers to be most at risk.

[Donna Lynn]

Public Citizen didn't talk to us to ask us the question. I think they must have just looked at profiles of hospitals and health systems that have a high number of government payers. So I appreciate the fact that they're raising the concern. Also, we have some concerns, as you certainly have covered with the state Medicaid budget cuts, which are first of all, they take effect sooner. They take effect July 1, and that's a 2% direct cut in the provider fees that are paid to us. So, you know, I think we sort of have the double whammy in Colorado, although I think many states are facing similar things. Medicaid costs are going up, state budgets are under pressure, but we're going to continue to try to work on how do we keep providing the level of service that we do. And a lot of the talk prior to this report has really been around rural hospitals. And rural hospitals are under a very different kind of strain because their communities in some cases are shrinking. The hospitals are a large source of employment, and they to keep open 24, 7 or to have the kind of staffing that they need in a rural area is challenging just because of workforce shortages. But the economies of scale aren't there. So I think it was right, as I said, for the report to raise a concern. But the conversation around service disruptions is certainly premature and something we're going to work to avoid.

[John Daly]

What steps can and is Denver Health taking to manage the financial constraints that you're now under? If you have the same level of demand as you've always had, but now you've got less money to address those needs, how do you do that without making cutbacks?

[Donna Lynn]

One thing, as you well know, is that 2Q, which the voters passed in November of 2024, was specifically to help us with uncompensated care.

[John Daly]

This is the ballot measure in Denver where you ask voters to support Denver Health financially.

[Donna Lynn]

It was a sales tax of 3.4 cents on a $10 purchase. And, you know, it was not designed to allow us to do things, you know, build a new hospital, which someday we were going to have to do. It was designed not for administrative expenses, but it was designed for the areas where we have the highest uncompensated care, meaning people who are uninsured completely or people who are on Medicaid. And it was devoted and is devoted to primary care, pediatric care, emergency and trauma care and mental health. And substance use. The irony is that that amount of money was supposed to deal with the fact that we already have a large amount of uncompensated care. But when we get into 2027 and subsequent years, we'll have even more. So the 2Q money was a fabulous support from the Denver community for Denver Health. But the other cuts that are coming in Medicaid are going to eat away at that pretty substantially. We do think over the period of the HR1 implementation that 20,000 of our patients will lose their Medicaid coverage despite all the efforts that we're going to do to keep them insured.

[John Daly]

That's a lot.

[Donna Lynn]

It is a lot. We see 280,000 patients a year. So 20,000 of them losing coverage is really, it's very significant. But as I said, I think the pressure is going to come on Washington from other states as well as what we're going to try to make sure that our delegation understands. And quite frankly, this is going to hit the Republican members of the delegation and people they represent equally. It's not, again, many of them represent rural areas, which will be severely hit.

[John Daly]

Are you asking Congress to make changes now to head off some of the worst impacts of the cuts to Medicaid that are really in the pipeline?

[Donna Lynn]

Yes, absolutely. I mean, we meet routinely with the entire delegation. We don't just say let's meet with the Democrats, but we meet with the entire eight members of the House and the two senators and even lobby and talk to the people who are on the administrative side in health and Human Services to let them know. And I'm a firm believer that people who are uninsured, as you know, delay care, avoid care, and then what happens is they end up in the emergency room where the care is more expensive. The other thing that happens is they may not be able to work if their medical condition is so severe. So there's a business argument as well, I think from a productivity point of view and from being present at work, that if you don't have people insured, whether they're through their employer or they're through Medicaid or Medicare, they're just not going to be as productive as if we were providing insurance across the board.

[John Daly]

How big will these cuts be if everything goes into effect for Denver Health, and I'm talking both the federal cuts but also the state cuts, I mean, how much of your budget is at risk at this point?

[Donna Lynn]

47% of our patients are on Medicaid. We still also have a pretty significant portion that are completely uninsured the estimate, and it was not done by us, it was done by a third party consulting firm, was that the annual impact to Denver health would be $64 million, which is kind of ironic because the sales tax initiative is just about the same amount of money. But as I said, the sales tax initiative was to deal with uncompensated care that we already had, not this additional burden. So I think our strategy is mostly going to be focused sort of in three areas. One, seeing if Congress can see their way through the devastating impacts that these cuts are going to have not only in Colorado, but across the country. The second is to make sure that we keep as many people on Medicaid as we can. So making sure that they sign up and they have the documentation for work requirements or making sure that they come in twice a year. So then the third is there probably will be some necessary belt tightening that we have to do. And, you know, belt tightening shouldn't come at the expense of the healthcare workers, quite frankly, because they are already a little stressed, you know, post Covid. And some of it is going to be maybe more use of technology to hear a lot about AI these days. But we are trying to use technology where we can and make those kind of investments. But we want to be here for the people of Denver and quite frankly of the entire state because we do serve people from 61 of 64 counties.

[Ryan Warner]

Donna Lynn is CEO of Denver Health. She spoke with CPR health reporter John Daly. You can read John's coverage@cpr. Including a list of the eight other Colorado hospitals on the brink. And Colorado Matters continues shortly with the phenomenon of rain bombs. I'm Brian Warner. You're with CPR News and krcc. You're back with Colorado Matters from CPR News and krcc. I'm Ryan Warner. Colorado's no stranger to severe weather, from some of the nation's worst hail to twisters. Well, you can add rain bombs to the list. That's an intense concentrated downdraft that can happen inside a thunderstorm. With it come destructive winds and heavy rain. A monstrous weather event.

[Donna Lynn]

We should not be here.

[Allison Sherry]

Is striking again and again.

[Donna Lynn]

We were trapped.

[Ryan Warner]

Intense, highly localized and deadly. That thing just collapsed right on those mountains.

[Chloe Duplessis]

It can look like a bomb went off.

[Ryan Warner]

A new documentary takes a closer look at these storms within a storm and the science behind them. It features the work of Sue Vandenheaver. She's an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University who flies into the storms. She spoke with Arlo Perez, Esquibel, Timmy

[Arlo Perez Esquivel]

to one of those moments you're on a plane heading towards a storm.

[Sue Vandenheaver]

When you're in the field, you're flying toward a storm, you see this amazing deep outline of the cloud coming toward you very fast. And then as you hit the storm, you connect with the air rising up through the storm. It's going up at a very rapid rate on the order of 20 meters a second. And the interesting thing is, is when the plane gets kicked up at such a fast rate, it's very difficult to lift your hands off a desk or, or to lift your feet off the ground because you're being lofted so quickly. Of course, the scary thing is when you're going up in the updraft, you know that what goes up is coming down. And so you get tossed up. You fly forward and then you drop down very rapidly. And on one of the particular flights that I'm thinking of, we dropped so quickly, my laptop hit the ceiling of the plane and broke. So it gives you some sense of how turbulent this kind of flying can be.

[Arlo Perez Esquivel]

This fascination with the sky. It didn't start in the lab for you, right? It started when you were, when you were much younger, just three years old.

[Sue Vandenheaver]

Yeah, it did. And I, I love to tell the story. I was fascinated with the sky even then. And I. The question I continuously asked my mother was, mom, why do clouds not fall on the ground? And she didn't know how to answer it. And it is a fascinating question. There's a lot of physics behind the reason why clouds do not fall on the ground. It's a question I still ask my incoming graduate students. And ultimately we now do know how to answer that. But it sort of drove me toward clouds and my fascination with them.

[Arlo Perez Esquivel]

Wow, I love this. And you know, eventually that fascination led you here to Colorado and at the moment, studying these rainbow phenomena. Can you tell me what they're like and what is it like being caught in one?

[Sue Vandenheaver]

Being caught in a rainbow can actually be quite a scary experience on the ground. So they happen very quickly and they happen over quite a narrow area. And you will end up, if you're standing on the ground, what you feel is a hurricane force wind. This is air that's sinking very rapidly toward the ground in what we call downdrafts. And then because that air cannot sink into the ground, it has to spread outward as it hits the ground, and so on again at hurricane force winds, you're looking at winds on the order of 70 to 100 miles per hour.

[Arlo Perez Esquivel]

Wow, that sounds terrifying. Is there an example of what it can do to a community.

[Sue Vandenheaver]

Yeah, Ola. These are very destructive and somewhat frightening systems. There is an example from last year. In May of 28, 2025, there was a microburst that occurred in Austin and it produced very large hail, heavy rain, and tens of thousands of people lost power. Numerous trees were uprooted, power lines were heavily damaged. Sadly, someone died after being swept away by associated floodwaters. So these events, these events are frightening and they have a direct impact.

[Arlo Perez Esquivel]

That's awful. And you know, you mentioned before that Colorado is a place where these happen. So how common are they?

[Sue Vandenheaver]

A field campaign in and around Denver measured or observed about 168microbursts over 86 days, which means on the order about two per day. And on Sundays they observed as many as 25 occurring on a day. So while you can't always extrapolate that to all areas in Colorado, that is a big chunk of change in terms of, you know, severe weather impact on Colorado residents.

[Arlo Perez Esquivel]

Absolutely. And wait, with 25 happening a day, and you mentioned a lot of them around Denver. There's an airport around here.

[Sue Vandenheaver]

There certainly is an airport around here. And these microbursts have a significant impact on aviation safety. What makes them particularly dangerous is they cause a very rapid shift in the wind direction. And so if a plane flies through a microburst, it thinks or it's experiencing a headwind initially only to have the direction of the wind switch around on the order of 180° over a matter of seconds. Unfortunately, this happens often very near to the surface. And so that gives pilots very little time to react. There was a recent incident in Mexico when Aeromexico was flying from Durango to Mexico City. They were cleared for takeoff. They flew right through a microburst. They were 30ft off the ground when this happened. And as a result, the plane actually didn't even clear the Runway. Crashed right in to the ground at the end of the Runway. Fortunately, no lives were lost. But you could have imagined a situation being much worse.

[Arlo Perez Esquivel]

How much of a problem is this for planes?

[Sue Vandenheaver]

So this used to be a very big problem in the US we had a lot of aviation accidents, very fatal accidents caused by microbursts in the 1970s, 80s, and the last one to occur was in the 1990s. The public was starting to become uncomfortable flying in and around such scenarios. And so there was a lot of federal interests, a lot of federal directives to address these issues. And a number of people got involved in conducting some excellent research to understand these systems to work out what instruments are needed in order to provide better observations around airports, thereby saving lives.

[Arlo Perez Esquivel]

And that research, as so happens, started here in Colorado.

[Sue Vandenheaver]

Scientists here in Colorado, from ncar, which is down the way from us here at csu, noaa, and then several other universities in the region, they participated in this JAWS field campaign that stood for the Joint airport weather studies project. It's quite a mouthful, but it was conducted out of Stapleton in 1982. And ironically, while JAWS was on the go, they had another devastating crash due to a microburst in July of 82 in New Orleans. And so it was at that point in time, the FAA said, that's enough, and they started putting a lot of funding into resolving this, and a lot of funding. While JAWS was on the go, and as I said, it was being conducted at Stapleton, the instrumentation that they were testing was able to actually effectively warn an incoming flight into Stapleton, thereby saving what could have been a really tragic accident occurring at Stapleton at the time. So this was a phenomenal demonstration, actually, of how effective the instrumentation was in helping warn aviation in and around the dangers of microbursts.

[Arlo Perez Esquivel]

That actually makes me feel a lot better. I mean, this is. When you even think about a plane just being dropped like that, that's terrifying. So it really is. Relieving that science that was conducted here in Colorado has, in many ways, helped keep us safer, Fly safer.

[Sue Vandenheaver]

Yes, it certainly has. Arlo and I fly into Denver International Airport often by virtue of where my work takes me. I've had several flights into Denver International aborted due to microburst activity. And people think, well, that sounds pretty scary, and maybe I shouldn't fly. And I think we can turn that around and say, this is science leading to understanding of systems, leading to implementation of instrumentation that keeps you safe.

[Chloe Duplessis]

Wow.

[Arlo Perez Esquivel]

The power of science right there.

[Sue Vandenheaver]

Absolutely.

[Arlo Perez Esquivel]

So it sounds like we've come a long way in detecting microbursts, but you're still out in the field. So take me there. What is it like to be out in the field, and what exactly are you doing? If we're already this good at preventing

[Sue Vandenheaver]

microburst damage, ultimately, what we really want to do is better forecast these systems using our computer models. So how would one do that? The best way to do that is to go outside and measure the very

[Arlo Perez Esquivel]

things you're interested actually go and see these things?

[Sue Vandenheaver]

Absolutely. We want to go and see reality. Are they as strong? Are they as deep? Are they as fast as what our computer models suggest they might be? And so that's what we do. We go out into eastern Colorado, up into Wyoming and even further east where we get these really strong storms that often produce these rain bombs. If you were standing with us in the field, you would see stacked drones so they vertically stacked one above the other. We typically fly three in a tower and three, four columns of drones across so that you now have, you can think about this as a big rectangle of drones and we measure in place. We don't run around, we don't fly our drones all over. We just stand there and we let the cold pool come to us. So you can see all of a sudden, all of a sudden all the grass is flat, trees are waving backwards and forwards and you know that it's coming. Then you know it's crazy because it goes from being almost really quite still and calm to this extremely fast gust of wind. So it's quite an experience. It's fun. The students love it. We love it.

[Donna Lynn]

Science is awesome, right?

[Arlo Perez Esquivel]

Truly. I don't think a lot of people realize how exciting science can really be.

[Sue Vandenheaver]

Absolutely. There are many times ala when we're standing in the field and we all look at one another and we're like, wow, this is our job.

[Arlo Perez Esquivel]

So sue, tell me about the future. What is next in trying to keep people safe?

[Sue Vandenheaver]

So we made tremendous progress technologically and we made tremendous progress from a theoretical standpoint in terms of understanding these storms. And a lot of this has come from ground based radars. But these radars are not all over the continental US they certainly are not over the ocean. And there are many places in and around the world that do not have anywhere near the kind of radar coverage that the US has. And so if we really going to get a good understanding, we need to make observations all around the world in all sorts of different environments. And so the next steps for us now, and I sort of view it as storm chasing from space. We brought in ground based radar, but now we taking radars to space. We're in the process right now of building a mission. It is called incas, which stands for the Investigation of Convective Updrafts. It's being led out of csu. I'm the principal investigator, but we have a lot of partners around the around the US and internationally. And in essence what we've built are three spacecraft each carrying a radar and they will fly over storms, sampling them in rapid succession.

[Arlo Perez Esquivel]

This almost sounds like science fiction.

[Sue Vandenheaver]

In some ways it feels that way.

[Arlo Perez Esquivel]

Sue, I want to ask you one final question. When you think back about when you were three years old and just looking at the clouds. Did you ever think that question, that curiosity would take you to space?

[Sue Vandenheaver]

No simple answer? No. There's no ways I could have predicted that. Not a chance. And it's almost a sort of message if, if you're an early career person, if you're in high school or in college, you have no idea that are potentially going to open up. It's sort of, it's a, you know, it just makes life very exciting from that perspective.

[Arlo Perez Esquivel]

Sue, thank you so much for this fascinating conversation.

[Sue Vandenheaver]

Arlo, thank you for having me on the program today. I've loved chatting with you. I really appreciate being with you.

[Ryan Warner]

Sue Vandenheaver is an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University. She spoke with Colorado TODAY co host Arlo Perez Esquivel. Her work is featured in the Nova documentary Rainbombs on pbs. This is Colorado Matters from CPR News. You're with Colorado Matters from CPR News. I'm Ryan Warner. A powerful art installation honoring black domestic workers in the American west is on view at the Fort Garland Museum and Cultural center in Southern Colorado. Twelve tablecloths by artist Chloe Duplessis tells stories long overlooked of labor, resilience and survival. CPR's Hayley Sanchez visited an earlier version of the exhibit in Trinidad.

[Hayley Sanchez]

So we're stepping into this space. It's transformed, smells of sage. It has beautiful cloth, some burlap hanging, a nice table set here. And before we jump into what people will see and feel here, I want to go back to where this all started. You began researching the topic of domestic workers in Louisiana.

[Chloe Duplessis]

Yes.

[Hayley Sanchez]

Now explain what you learned there.

[Chloe Duplessis]

So about four years ago, I went to Louisiana, my home state. I'd been living in Colorado, Colorado for a few years, and I was invited back to do a show. And while I was there, I reached out to a friend who was working then as the education manager at the Whitney Plantation Institute, and I connected with her and we went on a tour. And I knew, you know how you go places and you're just like some, some part of this is really going to resonate with me, with my spirit. I knew because of the subject matter and the roots of the Whitney and that historic plantation that there would be something that would move me deeply. What I didn't know was I would connect with a story that would largely consume me and propel kind of my artistic direction for the next several years. At the last moment, we decided to take a tour of the main house at the Whitney Plantation. And in doing so, I saw the small shack behind the plantation and I asked the, the guide, I said, please tell me about this house. I just said, that's where people were cooking and preparing food and, and doing all the things and washing the linens. And I thought to myself, washing the linens. First of all, keep in mind, for anyone who has been to New Orleans in the summer, it's, it's hot, it's hot, it's humid. There's a dankness there. And it's. It's such a contrast because New Orleans is so rich and so vibrant, has so much to offer. It's almost like that's the price you pay for the food and the culture is to be in these extreme climate. So we're sitting there swatting mosquitoes, listening to this beautiful story, and I was just like, who has time or capacity to do linens? Because keep in mind, there are no markets. So, you know, these women are actually growing, sourcing, fishing, hunting, procuring, everything for meals. And there are three meals offered daily, right? So you have breakfast, you have supper, you have dinner. Lunch is not a thing. Yet lunch comes about years later when people start going into factories. So you have these heavy meals. And we found out during that tour that the average meal required between 10 and 12 tablecloths.

[Hayley Sanchez]

Wow, that's incredible.

[Chloe Duplessis]

Each meal, every meal.

[Hayley Sanchez]

So this is like 30 tablecloths a day, honey.

[Chloe Duplessis]

Do you see me swooning? So here's the thing. So I'm standing here in the heat with my family on this tour, and I'm just thinking, as a woman, as a mother, as a woman of color, I'm just thinking, first of all, what are you eating for 10 or 12 courses? But then I'm also thinking about what it really represents. Truly, honestly, Haley, you know, this is creating some version of quality of life for the people in the main home, right? At the very cost of quality of life for those who are doing it. Because if you are preparing meals in this fashion, this is an all day thing. This is sun up to sundown, right? Additionally, while you're in the. In the shack in the back preparing the food, there are women who have been required to do the washing of the tablecloths to make sure that they're ready. So think about a boiling cauldron of sorts, for lack of a better term, and hot water and all the things that come with that. And I just, I couldn't. I couldn't shake it. I couldn't shake it. I fell silent and I. I just kept shaking my head. And before I realized it, I was literally, I'd literally been there for almost a minute, just like gently shaking my head and thinking how and why and all the things. So on the trip back to New Orleans, it's about a 45 minute drive. I was quiet in the car. That is significant because I am really quiet. So much so that my husband said, are you okay? And I literally just kind of looked up, I glanced at him and I said, I don't. I don't know what to do with this, but I have to do something with this. It's just. It's so heavy. It's so real. It's so relevant in so many ways still for women and for the journey. More importantly, the connection to Colorado is that there were enslaved persons in Colorado, black enslaved persons in Colorado. And this was debated for years and years and years. Our research team at History Colorado through the Colorado Black Equity Study, actually confirmed enslavement in Colorado and confirmed that former governors had enslaved persons here in Colorado and many major business owners and frontiersmen. Estes Park. Yeah, Mr. Estes came here because of gold rush and came from Georgia, packed his wagon, his materials, and five enslaved people. And when he left, he took his materials, he took his wagon, and he took five enslaved, enslaved people. So this notion that Colorado is different, it doesn't hold weight. But I believe that until we honor it, we're not going to be able to get past it.

[Hayley Sanchez]

A big part of this installation is about reclaiming the lives of women whose stories were not recorded or were partly recorded. And you found many of them through census data. Tell me a little bit about them.

[Chloe Duplessis]

These beautiful women served and we pulled census data, so they were serving between 1890 and 1920, and they range in age from 16 to 50. I was very surprised to find someone of a mature age servant because you don't see that a lot in the early 1900s, typically because people just didn't live long because they were navigating so much and the rigors of being domestic servants. So I was really surprised at that. And what is really unique, one of them specifically has a very, very special story in that she is listed early on in the census as being a black woman domestic servant. Her name was Laura Graham. About 10 or 20 years later, Laura is listed as being a white woman. All the information is the same. And for people who study this work, we know that that means that Laura was passing.

[Hayley Sanchez]

Right? You've said when people pass, they give part of themselves.

[Chloe Duplessis]

Yes.

[Hayley Sanchez]

That mean to you?

[Chloe Duplessis]

Yes, I fully believe that someone's decision to pass and I say decision and not Choice. I. This is my belief. Someone's decision to pass requires many, many things, because in doing so, you may, in your mind, create for yourself some version of safety, which is a very real thing, always with women, always historically, and not to be minimized by any measure, but I think in doing so, when you pass, depending to the extent that you pass, whether you're moving or traveling or. Or relocating, you give up a portion of who you are, you know, for this new identity, it's required, you know, so whether you are someone on any measure of the spectrum of what it means to be a person of color, once you do that, that is a part of the agreement. And I don't know the details of her decision to pass, but I did think that it was remarkable that we were able to actually document that, because you don't typically think about people passing outside of the south or sometimes in later years, passing on the East Coast. It's just not something that we've seen a lot in the research. So for me, as a historian studying this work, living and working in Colorado, it raises the question, what were the conditions around her life that would require her to feel compelled or feel that she needed to pass?

[Sue Vandenheaver]

Right.

[Hayley Sanchez]

Kind of over here onto the side of your exhibit. There's quite a bit of burlap here.

[Donna Lynn]

Yes.

[Hayley Sanchez]

And this is a textile that means

[Chloe Duplessis]

a lot of fabric.

[Hayley Sanchez]

This is a textile that means a lot to you. Describe what the significance of.

[Donna Lynn]

Of it is.

[Chloe Duplessis]

I do love burlap. And burlap is always the. The fabric of choice for my work. It represents the resilience and the capacity of black women. And when you think about burlap, think about. It's rough to touch. You know, some fabrics you put on and you wear it for a few seasons, you wash it, and you're like, oh, these are my favorite pants or my favorite dress or sweater. There's a little bit of give to it. Not so with burlap. Not so. It's. You always know that you're dealing with that fiber. You never have the gift of pretending it's something else. Right. So to me, that means several things. It means that when working with the burlap, I'm always reminded of all the ways in which black women have had to contort themselves and bend and bow and pursue, present themselves to live, to survive. And you know that that can be expanded to womanhood in general. So I chose burlap because it was what many persons who served as enslaved persons had to wear. And it's always brushing your skin. There's always a rawness to it. But also, too, if you pull, as I hold this burlap. If you pull burlap and just pulled up just a little bit, you create something that wasn't there before, and it kind of moves, and it holds its shape. And I think of women as being very similar. So if you feel supported and anchored in whatever way that means to you, and when life hands you some really tough situations, if you truly feel supported and anchored, you won't break. You won't come apart. You'll just kind of move and shift. And I think if anyone has done that in our culture, it has been black women.

[Hayley Sanchez]

There's a lot of other symbolic materials that I see throughout your exhibit here. Blue gingham.

[Chloe Duplessis]

Yes.

[Hayley Sanchez]

Pinto beans behind you, some dried herbs, Maybe a color palette tied to local foodways. Will you explain some of these choices here?

[Chloe Duplessis]

Absolutely. So when people come to this show, they typically think, I'm going to see 12 tablecloths, and that would be grand. But after the third one, you'd probably say, okay, we've seen all the tablecloths that we need to see. They will actually see a room that is reclaimed and curated to not only honor the store and the expansiveness of what it means to be a black woman in this country and to serve, but they will also see a space that hopefully, for them, honors the beautiful regional roots and of southeastern Colorado. And that was very, very intentional. You'll see the pinto beans, because people here have, for generations been eating pinto beans. You'll also see we wanted to really kind of create a beautiful altar to the women, honoring both the native women who served here and the black woman who served in Trinidad. So you will actually see little bitty spice jars with local seeds. We want to really give them their due. And for many of the women that we're serving, whether they were black or native or of any experience, oftentimes the reality is whatever you're preparing for the people in the main property, you're not eating right. You're getting the scraps. You know, you're getting the leftovers. You're getting whatever is available. Hence, that's how American cuisine was built. You know, that's how soul food was largely built, making the most of what you had. And I think that, to a certain degree, every woman kind of has a little bit of that. We got a little bit of that awesomeness where we just know, I'm gonna take what I have and make sense something extraordinary. It's our superpower. We have the chiles, of course, because of the region. All the things. Right, all the things. And then the last fiber that we used was that of gingham. Typically, when you think about post Civil War energy, you think about kind of that red, kind of Dukes of Hazzard bad, right. Bandana energy. So I did not want to use that because I did not want people to automatically go to a place that allowed them to kind of normalize it, because it has been normalized in our culture. Kind of this good old boy energy. There are other ways we can honor people by reimagining what we've been taught. And by that, I mean, when I think of gingham, I think about little dresses I used to wear as a girl during the summer. I think about tablecloths that were there for picnics. You know, it's. It's a fabric that I actually have fond memories around. But as I grew into adulthood and learned more in my craft and my area of study, I had some trouble with it, because, like many things in our culture, it's rooted back to oppression. I want to honor that as well, because lynching was a very big thing in Colorado, contrary to popular belief with public executions. So I wanted to kind of create a flow, and rather than have a tablecloth here, I created a runner out of gingham. I think for me doing these specific shows, it is a way for me to repair harm. I can do nothing of what happened before me. I can only shift energy around the work I'm doing now. And that is the intention. And that's deeply gratifying. Deeply gratifying. You know, we have no proof to suggest that the four women were honoring, knew each other or even knew of each other, but they are now here in community, and they are being honored. And out of all the people who lived in this region over the past 100 years, their stories rose to the top. And I feel a sense of deep gratitude for that. We want to honor them. We want to elevate their existence, their very existence. And with each of these shows, we are literally offering new scholarship and honoring stories that would not have otherwise been shared.

[Hayley Sanchez]

What do you hope visitors think about the next time that they sit at a table with a tablecloth?

[Chloe Duplessis]

I hope that they think about all of the ways in which women have shifted energy to ensure a measure of quality of life for those that they are serving and those that they deeply care for.

[Hayley Sanchez]

Thank you, Chloe.

[Chloe Duplessis]

Thank you.

[Ryan Warner]

My colleague, Hailey Sanchez, speaking with artist Chloe Duplessis. Twelve Tablecloths runs at the Fort Garland Museum and Cultural center through May 30. And that is Colorado Matters for now, with thanks to our team.

[Allison Sherry]

Sandy Batulga.

[Sue Vandenheaver]

Tyler Bender.

[Chloe Duplessis]

Carl Bielick, Anthony Cotton. Pete Kramer.

[Donna Lynn]

Andrea Dukakis.

[Ryan Warner]

Zan Huckpechone, Matt Herz.

[Chloe Duplessis]

Tom Hess, Michael Hughes.

[Sue Vandenheaver]

Pedro Lumbragno, Shane Rumsey, Haley Sanchez, Chandra.

[Chloe Duplessis]

Thomas Whitfield.

[Ryan Warner]

And I'm Ryan Warner at CPR News and krcc.