HILDALE, Utah—Rescuers trudged through muddy streambeds Tuesday in a small polygamous town on the Utah-Arizona border, searching for people who were missing after a flash flood killed at least 12 people. The same flood claimed at least three lives in nearby Zion National Park.
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. Authorities had not identified the dead. Three people survived, all of them children, in the secluded community that is the home base of Warren Jeffs’ polygamous sect.
At Zion National Park, about 20 miles to the north, three bodies were found Tuesday, a day after four men and three women set out to rappel down a narrow slot canyon. They left before park officials closed the canyons that evening because of flood warnings, park spokeswoman Holly Baker said.
The group hailed from California and Nevada and were all in their 40s and 50s, Baker said. She had no details on their identities.
The group was in Keyhole Canyon, which narrows to just 6 feet across in places. Baker said the canyon received more than a half-inch of rain in a single hour.
