Search efforts for an Arizona woman who went missing after being swept away by floodwaters in Utah’s Zion National Park resumed
On Sunday, search efforts for a woman from Arizona who was last seen being swept away by floods in Utah’s Zion National Park resumed. The woman was last seen by authorities on Friday.
According to authorities with the National Park Service, rangers and members of the Zion search and rescue team were in the region of the Virgin River on Sunday looking for Tucson resident Jetal Agnihotri, who is 29 years old.
They added that Agnihotri was one of many hikers who were swept off their feet by rushing water in The Narrows near the Temple of Sinawava in Zion National Park on Friday afternoon. Zion National Park is located in southern Utah, close to the Arizona border.
Except for Agnihotri, the other hikers were on higher ground and were stuck there until the water level lowered.
According to the NPS, more than twenty members of the Zion search and rescue team were conducting their search for Agnihotri in and around the Virgin River. The NPS did not provide any new information on Sunday.
During this time, authorities at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico reported that about 150 visitors were rescued late Saturday night after being stranded within the park due to increasing water levels. Because of the risk of flash floods, park authorities instructed those who were at the visitor center to wait for several hours.
Because of the recent severe rainfall in New Mexico, the authorities say that many rivers and streams in the state are dangerously close to reaching record flood levels that have not been seen since the 1960s.
Four hikers were saved in Sabino Canyon east of Tucson on Friday by emergency crews, while 41 kids and staff members from Marana were rescued from their school buses that were caught in high water as storms moved in.
More than three inches of rain fell in the mountains northeast of Tucson on Saturday, according to the National Weather Service.
