5 Fatal Flash Floods in Grand Canyon
When it rains in Grand Canyon, sometimes it pours. Flash floods can start fast and become ferocious. Even for experienced hikers, getting caught in the wrong place at the wrong time can prove fatal.
Here are 5 tragic examples:
1. 20 Foot High Torrent Of Water – Hualapai Canyon
On August 10, 2001, Melvin Presta, age 39, Denice Cooper, age 40, and their 2 year old child Aaron were hiking to the village of Supai within Grand Canyon on the Havasupai Reservation. Within Hualapai Canyon, an area historically notorious for ravaging floods, the three were tragically engulfed and killed by a reported twenty foot high torrent of water and debris that came surging down the canyon with hardly a warning.
2. Monsoons In The Little Colorado River Gorge
Another fatal monsoon disaster struck only three days earlier. George Mancuso, age 46, and Linda Brehmer, age 51, were backpacking in the Little Colorado River area. This impressive, deep, and confined gorge is also infamous for its flash floods. Unfortunately, Mancuso and Brehmer were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and got caught in a flash flood while exploring a side canyon. Mancuso had extensive Grand Canyon backpacking experience, revealing that flash flood deaths can happen to anyone.
3. Poor Timing In Phantom Canyon
Flash floods can occur almost anywhere and anytime in Grand Canyon, but monsoon season is specifically dangerous. On September 11, 1997, John and Patty Moran, both age 40, and John McCue, age 36, decided to explore Phantom Canyon during the height of monsoon season. Phantom Creek is a tributary to Bright Angel Creek, and is a very narrow canyon upstream from the confluence. A wall of water flashed down this classic slot canyon and swept up the three hikers. McCue, desperately swimming with all his might, somehow managed to extricate himself from the flood and survived. The Morans were both swept down Bright Angel Creek into the Colorado River; their bodies were found much later dozens of miles down river.
4. Good Samaritans Mystery Drowning
On August 24, 1992, two hikers, Walter Jaskowiak, II, age 24, and Miriam Epstein, age 26, were reported overdue from a backpacking trek into Grand Canyon. Initially, there were very few leads available to solve the mystery of their disappearance, but as more clues were unearthed authorities pieced together the story. Their bodies were found by searchers, near the remote and difficult to access, foot of Horn Creek canyon, a side canyon west of Indian Garden. Autopsies revealed they both died from drowning and suffered multiple body injuries before the time of death. The evidence suggests they were swept away down a flooding Horn Creek. Sadly, they were evidently killed during an unselfish attempt to reach Indian Garden and secure rescue for two other hikers in need of evacuation.
5. Heroic Attempt To Save Son Ends In Tragedy
Roger Clubb, Sr., age 36, and his son Roger Clubb, Jr., age 8, were waiting out a rainstorm at Indian Garden on August 3, 1963. When the skies cleared they resumed their trek back up Bright Angel Trail, unaware of the massive rains that pounded the South Rim and funneled down Indian Garden Creek in the form of a flash flood. Clubb, Sr. first heard the flood, and then saw it barreling down towards them. Safe, high ground was within reach, but Clubb, Jr. had fallen behind and was in the inevitable path of destruction. Eyewitnesses reported that despite Clubb, Sr.’s heroic and desperate attempt to sprint to his son’s rescue, they were both engulfed in the flood and killed.
