Rescuers saved some 80 people in Grand Canyon floods that left 2 dead
and 1 missing, officials say
[September 01, 2026]
By JAMIE STENGLE and TY ONEIL
GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. (AP) — The bodies of a Texas
chiropractor and a lifelong martial artist have been found after a major
flash flood swept through the Grand Canyon. One person remains
unaccounted for after about 80 others were rescued over the weekend,
officials said Monday.
Saturday’s flash flood severely damaged the only water pipeline serving
Grand Canyon National Park. Officials barred tourists from staying at
lodges and hotels inside the park and issued emergency water
restrictions for year-round residents. Waves of torrential rain hit the
Bright Angel Creek area of the tourist destination that hosts 4.4
million visitors a year.
Grand Canyon Deputy Superintendent Brian Drapeaux said officials haven’t
fully surveyed the damage, but the park has said about 40% of the
pipeline is damaged.
Incident Cmdr. Dave Black said searchers used night vision and other
equipment to find people who needed rescuing during the deluge. By
sunset Saturday, 45 people were rescued, and 37 more were evacuated
Sunday.
Rangers referred to the park’s permit system and checked vehicle license
plates to track the number of missing people.
“As of right now, they have no reason to believe, from the tips we’ve
been through so far, that there’s anybody besides the one” missing
person, Black said during a news conference Monday evening.
The flood threatened people who hike far into the Grand Canyon
The flood happened deep in the canyon on Bright Angel Creek, which flows
into the Colorado River near Phantom Ranch. The area has a set of
historic dormitories, a canteen and a campground that is a popular
stopover for river rafters and people hiking from one rim of the Grand
Canyon to the other.
Scores of visitors had to be evacuated from by helicopter. They talked
of a massive deluge and rangers warning of rockslides and saw huge pools
of logs and debris rolling down the river as they stood nearby awaiting
rescue.
Hiker Daniel Evans said it rained several times before the worst
30-minute downpour Saturday afternoon. He had been planning to rest
through the hot day and spend the night near the hard-hit Bright Angel
Campground area.
Earlier, rangers told him it looked to be safe. Then, as the rain
poured, they told him it was time to go. He thought of Nepal and the
massive floods and landslides that poured down mountain valleys last
week.
“The entire time it was raining — the entire time I’m going through all
this and packing — I’m just keeping my eyes upstream, just praying that
a wall of water isn’t coming toward us,” Evans said.
Two hikers are identified as rescuers search for their friend
The families of chiropractor John Giusti and martial arts studio owner
Brent Rosenkranz, 42, identified them as the two people whose bodies
have been recovered, said Hannah Barricks, a liaison for the families.
A third buddy — 53-year-old Wyoming pilot Timothy Smith — went on the
trip with them and was still missing, Barricks said late Monday by text
message.
The men spoke to their families Thursday and found their campsite Friday
at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. They have not been heard from since,
the three families said in a joint statement released earlier Monday
through Barricks.
All three men had ties to Granbury, Texas. Their families said they
planned “several days of hiking, camping, fishing and exploring
together.”
Park officials said they recovered the body of a 46-year-old man Sunday
evening near Crystal Rapids along the Colorado River and, later,
recovered a second body but provided no other details.
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Bright Angel Canyon, damaged by flash floods, runs into the Colorado
River in the Grand Canyon, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026, at Grand Canyon
National Park, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher)
It’s ‘monsoon season’ in the Grand Canyon
Visiting the Grand Canyon can be particularly dangerous in the
summer because of the risk of flash flooding that accompanies the
monsoon, or rainy season. Clear days can quickly give way to
thunderstorms and downpours.
Rain also fell on part of the Dragon Bravo Fire scar, a burn area
left by a lightning-caused wildfire in July 2025. It burned for days
before exploding into a fast-moving conflagration that forced
evacuations and consumed the historic Grand Canyon Lodge, some
cabins and other structures on the North Rim.
Without vegetation, a barren burn scar allows runoff to flow more
quickly.
The steep, rocky nature of the canyon itself funnels water rapidly.
What might be a normal summer downpour somewhere else can become a
charging wall of water in the canyon.
El Niño has this year’s monsoon in the desert especially intense
This year’s monsoon is especially intense because there is a higher
amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, mostly because of a strong
El Niño, said A. Park Williams, a hydroclimatologist at the
University of California, Los Angeles.
The natural warming of parts of the Pacific Ocean can warp weather
globally. That extra water vapor in the Southwest U.S. gets wrung
out in the storm in the form of rainfall, he said.
The link to human-caused climate change and the heavy Arizona rain
is pretty strong, said climate scientist Daniel Swain of the
California Institute for Water Resources.
A few months ago, Swain and colleagues published a study in the
journal Weather and Climate Extremes finding that during the summer,
short-term intense downpours in the West — akin to the one that hit
the Grand Canyon — have become 10% stronger since 2000.
The flood knocks out the canyon’s water supply line
The flood was a major blow to an enduring effort to modernize the
water pipeline that serves visitors and the roughly 1,600 residents
of Grand Canyon Village.
A $208 million rehabilitation of the pipeline and upgrades to the
associated water delivery system started in 2023, with the park
service calling it a crucial investment to ensure the park can meet
the needs of residents and visitors. The project was expected to be
completed next year, though that timeline is now unclear.
While the Grand Canyon has large storage tanks for potable water on
the South Rim, they won’t be refilled because the pipeline is out of
service.
___
Stengle reported from Dallas. Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City;
Seth Borenstein in Kensington, Maryland; Mikella Schuettler in
Phoenix; Julie Walker in New York City; Jeffrey Collins in Columbia,
South Carolina; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; and
Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed.
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