At least eight people were confirmed dead and five more missing late Monday after two cars were caught in a flash flood in Hildale on the Utah-Arizona border.
Several vehicles were reportedly swept into waterways after heavy rains hit at approximately 5 p.m. MT, including two vehicles that had been carrying 16 people in Maxwell Canyon north of the city, said Kevin Barlow, assistant fire chief. The victims included women and small children, all from the Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, area. The towns are adjacent to each other across the state line.
Barlow said witnesses described a massive flash flood in Maxwell Canyon that pushed the two vehicles into a flood channel, washing them several hundred yards downstream.
"This wall of water just way out of the channel came up behind them and pushed them in," he said. The water was "far beyond its banks" and the flooding was "far more significant that we're seen for a long time," Barlow said.