Nine people are dead and a 27-year-old man is still missing following flash flooding north of Payson on July 15, 2017.
According to rescuers, about one hundred people were bathing at Cold Springs Swimming Hole, when a violent violent thunderstorm struck the area 8 kilometers upstream filling up with water the narrow canyon.
An extended family of 14 were celebrating a birthday on Saturday when a flash flood struck their swimming hole in Arizona. The bodies of five children and four adults were pulled from the waters.
The group of 14 set up lounge chairs not knowing an intense thunderstorm was dumping heavy rainfall just upstream in the Tonto National Forest.
The storm unleashed six-foot-high floodwaters, dark with ash from a summer wildfire, onto the unsuspecting family and friends. The torrent carried away tree branches and other debris and left a wake of nine bodies.
Search and rescue crews, including 40 people on foot and others in a helicopter, recovered the bodies of five children and four adults, some as far as two miles down the river.
People who weren’t fast enough to get onto cover have been swept away by the powerful current.
Currently, Arizona is battling a strong monsoon season accompanied by intense thunderstorms and dust storms.
