One Dead, About 15 Missing in Grand Canyon Flash Flood
A flash flood tore through the Grand Canyon’s Bright Angel Creek area after up to an inch of rain fell in twenty minutes on saturated ground, killing a 46-year-old man and leaving about fifteen people unaccounted for. More than sixty were evacuated; footbridges were destroyed and the canyon’s main water pipeline damaged. Phantom Ranch, the campground and the river rafting corridor are closed, with further storms forecast through today.
Slot canyons turn modest rainfall into moving walls of water — the inch that fell in twenty minutes arrived at the bottom of Bright Angel as something no hiker can outrun, in a corridor where the only exits are the trails the flood was using. Fifteen missing in the canyon’s depths is a number that may resolve quickly — stranded parties are found as trails reopen — or become the park’s worst disaster in decades; the destroyed footbridges and a damaged pipeline mean searchers work a canyon cut off from its own infrastructure. The monsoon pattern that did this is forecast to continue through today, holding rescue hostage to the sky. Watch the accounted-for count as crews reach Phantom Ranch — and today’s storm cells.