Flutterby™! : Grand Canyon flash flood deaths

Hikers die in flash floods in Grand Canyon. In 1984, I, my dad, and a friend, were hiking up out of the Grand Canyon, I think we'd gone down the South Kaibab trail, and were coming back up the Bright Angel Trail. The rest of the two families were hiking down to meet us. We'd stopped for lunch at the Indian Gardens plateau when a thunderstorm hit. Since these things lasted 45 minutes and happened every afternoon, we thought nothing of it and started back up the trail. Shortly thereafter, we heard someone up the trail yelling "get up! get up!" so we scrambled up a bank and watched this wall of water come down the trail, dry in front, 3 to 5 feet of water behind, and completely destroy a rock retaining wall beside where we'd been standing. The party coming down had a similar experience, they ducked into a hiking shelter and saw rocks and water tumbling down on either side. Being an easterner, I'd never imagined what a flash flood was really like and thought people who got caught in flash floods must be morons; since then I'm a complete coward any time I think there may be precipitation uphill from me, especially when I'm in low vegetation environments.