9 dead in U.S. flash flood

Gov. Spencer Cox arrived in the stateline communities of Hildale and Colorado City on Tuesday with the message that Utah has activated the National Guard and other state resources to help residents recover from flash flooding that filled streets with debris and left at least 12 people dead.

Only one person was still missing Tuesday afternoon in Hildale, Utah, out of 16 people – three women and 13 children – who were in two vehicles that got smashed Monday by a wall of water and carried several hundred yards downstream.

Fire and rescue workers pull a woman from a auto in knee-deep flood water in the town of Hildale, Utah along the Arizona border on Monday, September 15, 2015.

In the sister towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., residents called the disaster the worst flood in memory.

The flash flood started with heavy rains yesterday evening in the canyons above Hildale, the assistant fire chief said.

The search effort was scaled back Tuesday night but would resume in earnest in the morning, the Utah Department of Public Safety Division of Emergency Management said.

The ninth victim, the body of an approximately 10-year-old child, was found about noon on the Arizona side of the border about 5 miles from where the vehicle he was riding in was found. Another body was found about an hour later and two more an hour after that.

Hildale is located around 500 kilometres south of Salt Lake City. It was in this area at Maxwell Canyon where heavy rains sent waves of water down Short Creek and barreling through the towns.

Joseph Jessop spoke softly but full of emotion, his family changed forever by rushing flood waters that swept them away. As many as 16 people were in the two vehicles.

McInerney said the weather service has been warning of flash floods, like the ones that swept through Hildale.

Four people died and three were still missing at Zion National Park in southern Utah after the flash floods coursed through a narrow slot canyon.

“We are in shock, really”, Johnson said. “They were getting washed away, and there was nothing I could do about it”.

The park said in a statement their vehicle was found at a trailhead on Monday evening, and a search began on Tuesday.

The Nationwide Climate Service is forecasting scattered rain and thunderstorms Tuesday within the space.

“Just never experienced this before”, Barlow said softly.

Four others who were exploring the canyon were missing Tuesday, and Baltrus said rescuers wouldn’t be able to go into the small canyon until conditions improved.

Zion is the most-visited of Utah’s five national parks and attracts almost 3 million visitors a year.

Greater than 4 years after Jeffs was sentenced to life in jail for sexually assaulting underage women he thought-about brides, the group is cut up between loyalists who nonetheless consider Jeffs is a sufferer of spiritual persecution and defectors who’re embracing authorities efforts to tug the city into trendy society.