![\"Michael](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1940b64c-e303-4c32-a7fa-eb116483abbb_1744783471.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nA sudden flash flood in the Grand Canyon on Saturday killed two people, left 14 others missing, and caused extensive damage to campsites, trails and infrastructure. <\/p>\n
The flood, caused by a monsoon storm, swept through Bright Angel Campground and Phantom Ranch, destroying bridges, campsites and buildings. Officials confirmed the body of a 46-year-old man was recovered from the Colorado River on Saturday night. <\/p>\n
What we know about the victims <\/p>\n
Officials identified one of the victims as Dr. John Giusti, whose body was recovered. Two of his friends, Brent Rosenkranz and Timothy Allen Smith, remain missing. <\/p>\n
The three friends, all from Granbury, Texas, had been excited to take this vacation trip together to the Grand Canyon.<\/p>\n
Search and rescue efforts are ongoing as authorities work to locate the missing individuals.<\/p>\n
The missing individuals are believed to be hikers and backpackers who were on trails when the flood hit. <\/p>\n
Witnesses describe the scene<\/p>\n
“This one was black water, turbulent water, moving very quickly,” hiker David Gregory said. “It sounded like little thunder as they were kind of crashing onto each other.” <\/p>\n
Gregory and his friend’s family were ordered to evacuate and run across a footbridge to higher ground. <\/p>\n
“If they hadn’t told us to evacuate when they did, I don’t think it would have been a way. A lot of people wouldn’t have made it,” hiker Gabe Bergemann said. <\/p>\n
Just 10 minutes after the evacuation, the footbridge was gone. Campers described watching a wall of water tear through Phantom Ranch, sweeping away boulders, an excavator and even entire buildings. <\/p>\n
“There was a fridge. We even saw the scariest thing was there was like a cabin that washed down the river, and we could like see the roof of the cabin and the bed from the cabin that was in the river,” Bergemann said. <\/p>\n
More than 60 people were airlifted out of the area by helicopter. <\/p>\n
“Ranger Kate, God bless her. She’s the one that orchestrated all this and saved everybody,” camper Scott Svedin said. “It would have been wiped out, all of us.” <\/p>\n
The disaster also knocked out the park’s only water pipeline, which serves tourists and residents, forcing lodges and hotels to close to overnight visitors. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hikers describe flash flood in Grand Canyon that left 2 dead, 14 others missing A sudden flash flood…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11574,51251,45568,146949,93939,146952,82064,146948,146951,12520,146950,11736,27,29,27508,28,18369,146953],"class_list":["post-422233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-body","tag-building","tag-cabin","tag-campsite","tag-colorado-river","tag-footbridge","tag-friend","tag-grand-canyon-flash-flood","tag-hiker","tag-official","tag-phantom-ranch","tag-saturday","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-man","tag-texas-news","tag-trail","tag-water-tear"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}