AILSA CHANG, HOST:
A second person has been found dead, and more than a dozen are still unaccounted for. This is after severe flash flooding in Grand Canyon National Park on Saturday. A cloudburst had dumped half an inch to an inch of rain in about 30 minutes at the top of the canyon. Water runoff then raced down steep cliffs and creeks, more than 4,000 feet to the bottom of the canyon where people were hiking, camping and floating on the Colorado River. Bridges and other infrastructure have been wiped out. Chris Clements from member station KNAU in Flagstaff, Arizona, joins us now with the latest on the search and rescue efforts. Hi, Chris.
CHRIS CLEMENTS, BYLINE: Hi.
CHANG: So all of this devastation, I mean, it's been so sudden, and I know that new information is still coming in. But what is the latest at this point?
CLEMENTS: Yeah. So today, Grand Canyon National Park's Facebook page said in a - that a second body had been recovered after announcing the first known fatality yesterday, and we really don't have further details on that at this time. But a park service press release yesterday did say a total of 15 people were unaccounted for after Saturday's flood event. Officials say they found two bodies since then, and search and rescue efforts have been ongoing. But storms continue to hover over the canyon, and officials at the park service said in a social media post that they are likely going to impact rescue efforts today.
CHANG: And how many people were in the canyon when the flooding hit on Saturday? Do we know?
CLEMENTS: So we don't have official numbers yet. The park service hasn't been talking directly with reporters, but this time of year, there are typically hundreds of people on trails inside the canyon or staying at Phantom Ranch at the bottom, where there are cabins and a campground. And of course, scores of people float on down the Colorado River. The river was briefly closed, actually, which is pretty unusual, but it's open again now.
CHANG: OK. Well, you mentioned that weather is coming as this search continues for survivors. Do we think more flooding is possible?
CLEMENTS: Yes, the Grand Canyon has been under a flash flood warning all day, and that's expected to be in effect until midnight local time, and that includes much of northern Arizona. Earlier today, one of my colleagues at KNAU spoke to meteorologist Justin Johndrow at the National Weather Service, and he talked about how Saturday's rainstorm fell on hundreds of square miles of burnt forest on the canyon's North Rim. And that contributed to the flooding. That area was burned last year during the Dragon Bravo fire.
JUSTIN JOHNDROW: The unburned areas, we think, contributed to the majority of the flooding. There was some rain on the burn scar, but it was kind of a small area of the burn scar.
CLEMENTS: And so in the Grand Canyon, all creeks and drainages lead to the Colorado River. And when rain hits the area in a big way like it just did, creeks like that one that saw a lot of flooding on Saturday funnel water with a serious ferocity. If you look at social media posts from Saturday, the river and the creek look like they're filled with a muddy, viscous, copper-colored liquid the consistency of concrete.
CHANG: Wow. And beyond this search for missing people, how else is the flooding affecting the whole park right now?
CLEMENTS: Yeah, one big way it's affected the park, Ailsa, is it damaged the main drinking water supply for the South Rim. And that's a pipeline that starts on the North Rim, goes down to the bottom of the canyon and then to the Colorado River, and then up to the South Rim. So today, the park service said that that damage means hotels on the South Rim will have to stop booking guests, and visitors to the rim will need to conserve water.
CHANG: That is Chris Clements from member station KNAU in Flagstaff, Arizona. Thank you, Chris.
CLEMENTS: Thanks so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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