The Grand Canyon is considered the deadliest national park, with the highest number of missing persons, deaths and even suicides from 2018 through the first two months of this year. FOX Weather’s Max Gorden reports.
GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Arizona — The search is currently underway for a hiker who was swept away in a flash flood in Arizona’s Grand Canyon National Park on Thursday, stranding hundreds of other hikers.
Heavy rains caused flooding along Havasu Creek on Thursday afternoon, stranding about 200 hikers, including several above and below Beaver Falls, according to National Park Service officials.
Rescue workers arrived by helicopter to help, but learned that a 33-year-old woman had been swept into the raging Havasu Creek about half a mile above the mouth of the Colorado River and was still missing.
The woman, identified as Chenoa Nickerson, is described as 5 feet 8 inches tall, 180 pounds, with brown hair and blue eyes, NPS officials said. She was wearing a black tank top, black shorts and blue hiking shoes, but no life jacket, officials said.
“It was very scary”
Rochelle Tilousi, who lives near Havasu Creek, told FOX 10 Phoenix that Thursday started out as a beautiful day with clear skies, but around 11 a.m. clouds rolled in and an hour later it started raining heavily for at least 30 minutes.
“It was very scary,” said Tilousi. “This is the second biggest flood I have ever experienced in my life.”
National Weather Service officials said the region received between 1 and 2 inches of rain within 60 to 90 minutes.
Heavy rains trigger flash floods in Grand Canyon National Park on August 22, 2024.
(Carley Vanderhorst Johnson/Facebook/FOX Weather)
Many tourists lost all their belongings as they fled to higher ground during the severe storm, FOX 10 reported.
“We had to cross a lot of water,” Mimbs told FOX 10. “A lot of bridges were washed away, but we made it back. The tribe let us stay in one of their buildings, the last one with about 200 people.”
FOX 10 reported that more than 100 people still had to be rescued by helicopter from the west end of the Grand Canyon on Friday evening and rescue operations were still ongoing.
In the meantime, if you have any information on Nickerson’s whereabouts, you are asked to call the NPS ISB tip line at (888) 653-0009.
