1 Hiker Dead, 10 Missing in Flood

Rescue teams on foot and in boats on Wednesday searched for the bodies of 10 hikers caught in a flash flood that sent an 11-foot-high wall of water roaring down a deep and narrow sandstone canyon near Lake Powell in northern Arizona.

The body of an unidentified woman was discovered shortly after the flood swept through the fabled 6-mile-long Antelope Canyon on Tuesday afternoon. Only one person, a guide from Los Angeles for a company called TrekAmerica, was found alive.

Authorities have given up hope of finding any more survivors in the chocolate-colored pools of water that remained in the canyon. Among those caught in the flood were seven French nationals, one British national, one Swedish national and three U.S. residents, including the guide who survived.

A team of rescuers found the survivor, Francisco Quintana, 28, staggering blindly along a muddy ledge in the canyon about an hour after the flood.

“What he’s asking now is this: Why am I alive and the others dead?” said Coconino County Sheriff David Ramos.

On Wednesday, Quintana told authorities that he had been invited down into the canyon by two members of his tour group about 4 p.m. Other members wanted him to photograph them in the narrows of its normally dry gravel bed.

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“As they were making their way out, he heard a loud roar, and he knew exactly what it was,” Ramos said. “They were within 100 feet of getting out when water started rising rapidly. Quintana, who is built like a linebacker, tried to wedge his companions between some rocks higher up the canyon wall.

“Then he saw two other guys float past,” he said. “After that, Quintana and his two companions held on for as long as they could. Eventually, they all let go and broke away.”

About a quarter-mile down the canyon, Quintana grabbed hold of some branches and pulled himself out of the water.

“We’ve searched the length of the canyon on foot and by boat where it dumps out at Lake Powell,” said Coconino County sheriff’s Lt. Ron Anderson. “We also had people rappelling down its walls to search the muddy sand and potholes in the canyon, which is about 2 feet wide and 80 feet deep in some places.”

Today, the search was expected to focus on a pile of rocks, brush, wood and mud--75 feet wide and 200 yards long--near the shore of Lake Powell.

Standing on a red sandstone ledge overlooking the so-called slot canyon, Anderson said: “We’ll also be working with two cadaver dogs, which are trained to detect decomposing bodies.”

Speaking of Quintana, Anderson said: “The power of the flood blew his clothes off; he was badly beaten up by rocks and he had so much silt in his eyelids he couldn’t open them. When we got to him he collapsed, muttering incoherently.”

Electrician Ted Candelaria, 37, of Page was among the first civilians at the scene. He described the flood this way: “It looked like ‘Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory’ had broken open, and it all was blasting into the canyon. Then I saw a tour bus and I knew there was trouble.”

Moments later, Candelaria was following a law enforcement official who was scrambling down into the canyon where other officers were tending Quintana, the lone survivor.

“I took off my shirt and placed it over his waist,” Candelaria said in an interview. “I pulled stickers out of his hair and cleaned his lips with gauze. Then I held his hand. He said, ‘Thank you. How’s everybody else?’ ”

Tony Church, an operations manager for British-based TrekAmerica, said that five of the missing hikers apparently were part of a group of 11 foreigners who were on a camping tour of the Southwest. The others among the missing were from other tour groups.

Local authorities on Wednesday contacted the consulate offices of the nations of the missing.

The TrekAmerica tour originated in Denver on Aug. 6. They camped in the Rocky Mountains and Mesa Verde National Park and were on their way to Lake Powell when they hiked into the canyon, Church said. Other destinations were Las Vegas and then Los Angeles.

Church said the six tour members who apparently survived were not in the canyon during the flood. He did not know why. Those tour members are returning to their homes, he said.

“Obviously, no one is very optimistic at this stage,” Church said. “We need a miracle.”

Authorities said it was not raining in that immediate area when the wall of water crashed through the canyon, which is on reservation land managed by the Navajo Nation.

“Tragically, there was a sizable thunderstorm 15 miles southeast of here,” said Coconino County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Sam Whitted. “And there were about 12 people in the canyon.”

It was the fourth devastating flash flood in Arizona in less than a week during the Southwest’s monsoon season.

On Sunday, a wall of water rushed through the Havasupai Indian Reservation in the Grand Canyon, and hundreds of residents and tourists had to be rescued by helicopter.

About 100 miles southwest of the Havasupai flood, an Amtrak train derailed Saturday after rushing water damaged a low bridge. More than 150 people were injured.

In extreme southern Arizona, a flash flood Aug. 6 killed six illegal immigrants crossing a drainage culvert in the border town of Douglas.

Times staff writer Nicholas Riccardi in Los Angeles contributed to this story.