Authorities have been searching for days for an Arizona woman reported missing after being swept away by floodwaters in Utah’s Zion National Park as strong seasonal rain storms hit parts of the US Southwest.
US National Park Service officials said rangers and members of the Zion Search and Rescue Team were on Sunday in the Virgin River area looking for Jetal Agnihotri, 29, of Tucson.
They said Agnihotri was among several hikers who were swept off their feet on Friday afternoon by rushing water in the popular Narrows area in the park, known for its spectacular red-rock cliffs and narrow canyons, in southern Utah.
All of the hikers except Agnihotri were found on high ground and were stranded until water levels receded.
Rain can turn hiking in the park deadly when the moisture runs off the desert landscape and quickly fills canyons with water, rocks and debris, especially during the summer when seasonal afternoon thunderstorms develop. The storms can lead to flooding in normally dry washes and in areas stripped of vegetation by wildfires that have plagued the drought-stricken region. Vegetation normally slows and partially absorbs precipitation.
On Sunday, an approximately 32km stretch of Colorado’s main east-west highway, Interstate 70, was temporarily closed because of the risk of flooding and mudslides from forecast storms in Glenwood Canyon, where a wildfire burned in 2020.
Elsewhere in Utah, flooding in Moab, the gateway to Arches National Park, on Saturday night closed trails in the city on Sunday as crews assessed the damage.
Meanwhile, in New Mexico, officials at Carlsbad Caverns National Park said about 150 tourists were evacuated late on Saturday night after being stranded by rising water.
Park officials told people at the visitor’s center to wait there for hours because of flash flooding.
Authorities said several rivers and streams in New Mexico have nearly reached historic flood levels not seen since the 1960s.
In Arizona, emergency crews rescued four hikers stranded in Sabino Canyon east of Tucson on Friday, and helped 41 students and staff from Marana off school buses that got stuck in high water when the storms began to move in.
More than 7.62cm of rain fell on Saturday in the mountains northeast of Tucson, the US National Weather Service said.
The rain comes amid a drought that scientists say is the worst in the US West in 1,200 years and aggravated by climate change.
Colorado River reservoirs have fallen to historic lows as a result. Earlier this week, states that rely on the river missed a deadline for deciding how to cut the amount of water they use from the river.
For Nevada, recent storms have given the Las Vegas metro area its wettest monsoon season in 10 years.
“Most locales in Arizona, New Mexico, the California deserts, southern Nevada, and a few other scattered areas have measured at least 200 percent of normal [rainfall] over the past 2 months,” the US Drought Monitor said in a report on Aug. 11.
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