American Fork Canyon reopens after flooding

American Fork Canyon reopens after flooding


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AMERICAN FORK — UDOT officials have announced that debris has been cleared and SR-92 is now opened to traffic.

Update

Saturday's storm brought a large amount of rain in short period of time. As a result, several debris slides led to the closure of American Fork Canyon around Timpanogos Caves.

"We had about 10-15 different slides varying in range," said UDOT spokesperson John Gleason. "The largest was about a 50-60 foot slide of debris just about a half a mile below Timpanogos Caves."

Rangers assisted about 150 people down the trail to the Monument visitors center to wait out the storm. They were given access to phones to contact their families and the snack bar stayed open for the stranded.

The slides prevented hikers and campers from leaving the canyon until later in the evening.

"At about 10:30 last night we determined that it was safe enough to escort each vehicle one by one down the canyon," Gleason said.

All hikers and campers who wanted to leave the canyon have been able to do so. But Gleason said some campers decided to stay and finish their planned trips.

No injuries have been reported.

Gleason said that State Road 92 is closed at the mouth of American Fork Canyon until slide debris has been cleaned up. Emergency traffic is allowed down the canyon, but no one is being allowed up.

UDOT hopes to have both American Fork Canyon and Timpanogos caves open again by this afternoon. But Gleason said that "may be optimistic at this point" since rain is predicted for today and there's still a flash flood warning in effect.

Visitors who had tickets for cave tours can call 801-756-5238 for refunds.


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Martha Ostergar

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