Featured SARstories Site: The Havasupai Flood

From time to time, we'll fill you in on one of SARstories' featured websites. Some, like Josh Kaggie's site about the 2008 flood in Havasupai, Grand Canyon, are occasionally updated with new material, and we'll let you know when we find it.

In August of this year, Josh was one of several hundred campers who were enjoying the blue-green waters and almost fantasy-like landscape in Havasu Canyon, part of the Havasupai Indian Reservation, when monsoon rains upstream and a subsequent dam break caused sudden and dramatic flashflooding. The heaviest flooding occurred during the dark, wee hours of the morning, and the severity of it took many people by surprise.

While, thankfully, there was no loss of human life, there were some close calls, and many of those visitors left the canyon with only the clothes (or swimsuits) on their backs. Both tourists and residents of Supai village were evacuated from the canyon by helicopter--Blackhawks, DPS and National Park Service machines--to Hualapai Hilltop. Some of those people were then taken to a Red Cross shelter in Peach Springs. Some had cars at the Hilltop but no longer the keys to start them.

Once back home in Utah, Josh put together a collection of links to first-hand accounts written both by flood survivors and rescuers, media reports, videos, photos and updates from the tribe. We've checked the site at http://www.havasupaiflood.com from time to time and have found new additions and, therefore, featured this website on the homepage of our own.