8 dead, 5 missing in flooding on Arizona-Utah border

An eighth person was confirmed dead and five people remained missing early Tuesday morning after two cars were caught in a flash flood in Hildale, Utah.

Contractors used heavy equipment throughout the night to clear thousands of tons of mud and debris from the area where several vehicles were swept off into a waterway early Monday evening.

Rain continued in the area throughout the night and flooding continued, according to the Washington County, Utah, Sheriff’s Office.

In the grey light of dawn Tuesday, a squadron of backhoes and earth movers cleared huge mounds of debris along Short Creek in the heart of Colorado City.

Beneath floodlights, women in long prairie dresses, small children and other residents of the mostly polygamous community stood in rainfall or peered over walls, grim-faced. A drone aircraft hovered and swooped overhead, its green light flashing.

The crumpled remains of a white vehicle that had already been removed laid nearby, evidence of the flash flood's onslaught of mud, trees and water.

The morning rain turned into a downpour at the bridge over Arizona Avenue and Central Street. One backhoe operator carefully scraped an upper layer of silt, searching while men with shovels looked on.

Nearby at Hildale Town Hall on the Utah side of the state line, search and rescue teams and a cadaver dog prepared for a second day to look for survivors or the remains of the casualties.

The rain swept two vehicles from a roadway at about 5 p.m. Monday and the vehicles were carrying at least 16 people, said Kevin Barlow assistant fire chief.

One survivor was hospitalized overnight, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Investigators said six of the dead were located in Utah and the other two were found in Arizona, more than 2 miles down stream.

The victims were from several families and included women and small children, the youngest of which was 4, he said. All were from the Colorado City and Hildale area on the Utah-Arizona border.

The group had been visiting a municipal park and debated whether to cross Maxwell Canyon to return to town. They were in the process of backing out, Barlow said, when witnesses described a massive flash flood that pushed the two vehicles into a flood channel, washing them several hundred yards downstream.

"This wall of water just way out of the channel came up behind them and pushed them in," he said.

Barlow said he didn't know how many of the deceased were children.

Multiple agencies were on scene trying to assist, including swiftwater search and rescue team members. Barlow said they scaled back operations for the night and would resume searching in the morning because of the dark and increased danger.

The National Weather Service had issued a flash flood warning for the area at the time, indicating that heavy storm clouds were moving into the area from the south.

Pete Wilensky, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City, said radar estimates indicated a pocket west of Hildale saw about 2.5 inches of rain over the course of two separate storm cells, one which passed through at about 3 p.m. and the other after 5 p.m.

The second storm was the stronger of the two, and with rivers already on the rise from the previous storm it exacerbated the flooding issues, Wilensky said.