Floods kill at least 16 in polygamous town, national park

HILDALE, Utah (AP) — Rescuers trudged through muddy streambeds Tuesday in a small polygamous town on the Utah-Arizona border and found the bodies of several children who died when their two vehicles were swept away in a torrent of floodwaters that killed at least 12 people. The same flash floods claimed at least four lives in nearby Zion National Park.

The van and SUV were filled with three women and 13 children when a wall of brown water overtook them Monday evening, carrying the vehicles several hundred yards downstream and sending them plunging down a flooded-out embankment with terrifying force. The SUV was smashed beyond recognition. Three people survived, all of them children, in the secluded community that is the home base of Warren Jeffs' polygamous sect.

A witness described rushing to where the vehicles came to a stop and seeing a gruesome scene of body parts, twisted metal and a young boy who survived the flood.

"The little boy was standing there," Yvonne Holm said. "He said, 'Are you guys going to help me?'"

Read more: http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/national/searchers-look-for-flood-victims-in-polygamous-utah-town