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Eleven people are still unaccounted for after floods swept through the Supai Village area of the Grand Canyon yesterday.
The disaster stranded residents, hikers and tourists; some from Utah. A teenager from Orem was airlifted out. He told KSL over the phone he was just happy to be alive.
Eighteen-year-old Jeffrey Anderson spent close to five hours in a tree above water; water he says was rushing at 30 miles per hour.
Anderson was camping with two others when the flood water swept their gear away. The group immediately got on top of a picnic table, but within minutes it was under water. So Anderson and his two friends had to get even higher.
"I, at that time, climbed up a tree, about 15 feet up, because the water was really coming faster and there were trees and logs that had been falling off upstream just raging past us. Being on top of that tree and having it start to fall over and feeling completely ready to die. I mean like, I felt like my life was going to be over within the next couple of minutes," he said.
Anderson and his friends were rescued by local Native Americans. He says without them, he's not sure they would have made it out alive.
Another Utah survivor, Angie Zimmerman, and her friends were in an area of the Supai Canyon known for waterfalls. They weren't expecting what her dad, John, says was a massive flash flood.
"She was in her tent and got hit by water coming down the canyon," he said. "They were hanging on the rocks for several hours, I think till morning."
Finally they were able to hike back to where helicopters were evacuating visitors. Angie and her friends lost tents, sleeping bags, shoes and some car keys. Zimmerman says it's a small price to pay for their safety.
The Coconino Sheriff's Office says it evacuated another 85 people today; that's in addition to the initial 170 residents, tourists and hikers rescued last night. Those people were airlifted to higher ground, then bused to an American Red Cross center in Peach Springs, Ariz.
E-mail: ngonzales @ksl.com
E-mail: aadams@ksl.com
