FEARSOME FLOOD

2 Hikers Dead, 1 Hospitalized After Flash Floods Rip Through Utah Canyon

“Should thunderstorm-bloated flood waters come charging down the tunnel, you’re no better than a bug in a firehose,” a 2008 guide to the area read.

Two men were found dead and another one rescued after flood waters surged through a slot canyon near the Utah-Arizona border on Saturday morning, authorities said. The first of the men was found in Buckskin Gulch on Monday, while the second was recovered several miles across the Arizona state line on Tuesday. A third man in the group was found on Monday afternoon by an air search team with an infrared canyon, and was hospitalized for hypothermia and bodily injury, according to Kane County Sheriff’s Lt. Allen Alldredge. Nearly a dozen other people were airlifted out of the canyon after the floods, he said. A 2008 Backpacker guide naming Buckskin Gulch as one of America’s most dangerous hikes described it as an “eerie corridor” 400 feet deep in places and rarely more than 10 feet wide. “Should thunderstorm-bloated flood waters come charging down the tunnel, you’re no better than a bug in a firehose,” it read. But at least one of the men had hiked through the gulch before, Alldredge explained. “They had the packs, they had the necessary gear, food and stuff they needed for this particular hike. It’s just the conditions were above and beyond what anybody expected,” he said, according to CNN.