Grand Canyon Flood Kills Two, Wrecks Water Pipeline

"It is with a broken heart that I share the passing of my husband, Brent Rosenkranz, while on his final adventure, a hike at the Grand Canyon," his wife, Elisha Rosenkranz, wrote on Facebook. "Thank you for every adventure, every meal, every laugh, and every hug. Most of all, thank you for giving me the love of a lifetime."

Survivors described almost no warning. Parth Desai scrambled into a patch of cacti after a colleague shouted "up, up, up, up" as a four-foot wall of debris came at him near Phantom Ranch. "We saw the creek flood, waterfalls coming up out of nowhere, boulders, mud, landslides happening everywhere," Desai told the Associated Press.

"Ground around us started flooding up and filling with water coming off of the canyon," evacuee Steve Kramer told CBS News. "All the people down in the canyon, there's just nowhere to go."

Hiker Christopher Dry, on higher ground with his son, told CNN he saw a bolt of lightning and rain, then "zero visibility" minutes later.

The Open Question

Whether anyone could have been warned sooner is unresolved.

The Bright Angel Creek gauge system was installed after a wildfire last year left the mountainsides essentially water-repellent and far more prone to this kind of flooding. It worked — until it didn't.

"They were working and then they weren't working," Drapeaux said. "We're not sure why — whether it was the debris flow that knocked them out of service or whether it was some other factor that put them offline."

CBS News asked officials whether anyone saw a flood of this size coming, noting the area took more than 5 inches of rain in 48 hours. Elizabeth Peace, a spokeswoman for the Department of the Interior, said, "I will follow up with you on your question. We don't have the weather service with us." CBS said it had received no answer as of Tuesday morning.