Floods kill 8, leave 5 missing in town known for sect leader

Published 10:03 am Tuesday, September 15, 2015

SALT LAKE CITY — A wall of water swept away two vehicles carrying women and children in a Utah-Arizona border town Monday, killing at least eight people and leaving five others missing in a community that served as a home base for polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs, authorities said.

Three people survived as the flash flooding washed the vehicles several hundred yards downstream about 5 p.m. MDT, Hildale assistant fire chief Kevin Barlow said.

The flood “obviously caught these people off guard,” Barlow told The Associated Press. “Witnesses say they were backing out of it trying to get away from it and it still swept them in.”

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One survivor was found downstream at a bank in town. Barlow didn’t have information on the others who were rescued.

Barlow said the rescue effort was ongoing through the night but scaled back because of treacherous conditions in the sister towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona.

He confirmed seven deaths Monday night, while the Utah Division of Emergency Management said in a later Facebook post that an “additional victim has been located below the Central Street crossing bringing the total number of confirmed fatalities to 8. There are still 5 unaccounted for.”