A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Officials in Arizona say two people died in the flash floods that swept Grand Canyon National Park over the weekend, with 82 hikers rescued over the course of a couple of days. At first, more than a dozen were missing, but last night, that number dropped to one. Chris Clements of member station KNAU in Flagstaff, Arizona, is reporting on this. Chris, let's start off with the number of missing people going down because it sounds like good news for the families.
CHRIS CLEMENTS, BYLINE: Yeah. That's right. Park Service leaders and local officials held a press conference about this last night. They told reporters that on Sunday, investigators were still searching for 15 people who were either missing or unaccounted for. Then that number dropped to 12 as of yesterday morning as they worked through more leads and more tips from the public. And by the time of this press conference, there was just one missing person left.
However, it's important to say that these are permitted hikers in the Grand Canyon. In other words, those missing people could be tracked by rescue workers because their names were on paper somewhere. But there could be day hikers who are missing, but officials just don't know about them yet. Park Service officials told reporters that they're still combing through hundreds of tips about those hikers.
MARTÍNEZ: All right, so it's a little bit more nuanced then.
CLEMENTS: That's right. And, you know, of course, a search is still underway for the last missing person that officials know of. There's been consistent rain starting this past Friday that's really made it harder for emergency responders to do their jobs. Incident commander Dave Black talked about that.
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DAVE BLACK: The weather has hurt our efforts. It has not stopped raining since this happened, on and off, and has delayed recovery efforts for the ones we know about.
MARTÍNEZ: So, Chris, tell us how all this got started.
CLEMENTS: Yeah. So it all goes back to Saturday afternoon. A thunderstorm hovering over the canyon dropped a half inch to an inch of rain in 30 minutes, and that rain fell on a section of the park that really doesn't see too much, including an area that was burned by a huge wildfire last year. So this incredibly steep, rocky area became inundated with water, which then flowed into a creek bed, which then flowed into the Colorado River. The flash flood obliterated bridges and destroyed a big section of a critical water pipeline that brings water to businesses and hotels on the south rim. And those, of course, are now under water restrictions.
MARTÍNEZ: Wow. Sounds like a catastrophe. I mean, what did Park Service leaders have to say about warnings or alerts to people who were in the canyon for this flood?
CLEMENTS: Officials at the press conference mentioned an emergency system that hikers and river rafters can use in the canyon. So this sends out alert text messages to satellite phones. This system has been around since 2024, and they say there's evidence it may have helped people in the lead-up to the flood. An emergency management official for a nearby county said that the system sent out six alerts to satellite phones shortly before the worst of the storm. That was on Saturday. Of course, this system isn't a prediction tool. They said it's really just for when there's already demonstrated flooding.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. That's Chris Clements of member station KNAU. Thank you, Chris.
CLEMENTS: Thanks so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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