Rep. David Schweikert gives eyewitness account of deadly Grand Canyon flood

Arizona U.S. Rep. David Schweikert was on his first-ever raft trip through the Grand Canyon on Saturday when a wall of floodwater came crashing into the Colorado River.

Schweikert heard it before he saw it.

“You’re coming around a bend and you’re hearing something. It almost sounds like a series of freight trains smashing into boulders,” Schweikert told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Outspoken with Bruce & Gaydos on Monday. “Then the sound bouncing off the canyon walls, this thunder.”

Schweikert, who said he has made roughly 40 camping trips to the canyon over the years, said the flood was unlike anything he had experienced.

He said the water was pushing boulders and debris into the channel and nearly creating a new rapid.

“I actually saw one of the construction workers’ aluminum buildings, part of a bridge being pushed into the Colorado River,” he said.

Hiker remains missing in Grand Canyon floods

The flooding, which struck the Bright Angel Canyon and Phantom Ranch area around 2:30 p.m. Saturday, has killed at least two people. At least one person remained missing Monday, the National Park Service said.

Schweikert said the footbridges connecting the two sides of the creek were destroyed, trapping people on both banks.

Helicopters ran evacuations through the night as the flooding continued.

The congressman, who hiked out via the Bright Angel Trail the next morning, said the creek bed, once about 20 feet wide, had tripled in size, with parts of the trail buried under feet of mud.

With no cell service in the canyon, Schweikert’s first message to his wife when he got out was a simple “I’m out and I’m alive.”

She sent back prayer hands.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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