Capitol Gorge flash flood rescue June 23rd 2022

firestone what you're about to watch may cause increased levels of anxiety and may be disturbing to some viewers these are the events that occurred from the experiences and perspectives of me and my family on the morning of june 23rd [Music] as we entered the gorge dirt road the riverbed was dry we had just passed through a small rain shower from the approaching cloud not knowing a large weather disturbance was heading right for us we also had no phone reception since entering the capitol reef national park area [Music] we follow behind a large motorhome and black pickup truck to the parking lot area where the trail begins and the road ends this is when the weather turned from clear skies to severe weather within minutes our ram rebel truck is seen parked closest to the awning and trailhead many of the other vehicles you see in the parking lot around us did not make it through what came next hail began to fall and became more intense as time went on visitors returned back to the parking lot from the trail as quickly as possible and took cover under the awning [Music] you can see here there are roughly 30 people taking shelter under the awning mesmerized by the events unfolding people's countenance began to change from entertained to concerned as the mood began to calm what started out as a fun unusual weather moment soon turned to worry as waterfalls began to form from above the gorge edge seeing the intensity of falling water from above became alarming for most at this point panic set in as people began running for their cars a river began to form under our truck as we also made our escape the amount of water falling from the cliff's edge was powerful to watch but we also realized we were sitting in a gigantic bathtub and it was only a matter of time before the bottom of the tub would start to fill up we jumped through the river running under our truck and got in i quickly made for the exit of the gorge not knowing what would soon i was still calm and entertained by the event as i joked with the kids but the rest of my family was still panicked and concerned yes you would have to wait for a few hours to dry out there this is great the forming river was still passable as i drove through keeping an eye out for trouble ahead of that man we are dude blowing out yeah yay [Music] this high ground in the road would have been a prime location to sit and wait for any pending flash floods especially for small cars you guys are gonna go oh yeah that was crazy i'm glad you're filming that dude you're not done yet as we made our way out of the gorge the walls began to narrow we should barely get in there soaking wet i had decided to jump through the river just to get in my door wow right here at this spot two vehicles were destroyed by what comes next you cannot traumatize yourself damn people watch indiana jones okay that doesn't mean your kids have to live through this yeah now rock's gonna start falling oh oh my gosh yeah there could be boulders you guys are in the ram rebel it's gonna oh some of those guys are going to be stuck yeah that's why not you guys not you guys at least well of course one of my boys said a prayer for our safety that we would get out alive it's like mud we're like the whole [Music] this particular spot would soon become our safe haven for the pending flood at this point the water is just a normal river the dad was like look at that what the heck is it's only when mom comes and goes crazy what came around this bend was two feet of water wall to wall coming straight at us unfortunately i didn't record the moment the flash flood came upon us or my crazy driving in reverse to jump up onto this island but i didn't expect to see what came next again warning these images could be hard to watch okay oh shoot you just it's gonna get worse around that corner i felt helpless as i watched the couple float away in their car and narrowly drown in the flood i had to stay with my family not knowing if the floods would rise and take my vehicle with the kids inside i later learned that that couple got picked up in a helicopter to safety so we're here up on top of an island with a river going in front of us and a river going behind us and i just saw a car go by a small car riding down the river backwards and smashed into a rock thankfully the river was able to dislodge them and they kept going down the river i really hope that this has not killed anybody because this is pretty serious stuff right here we are currently stuck up on top of an island and at some point when the rain stops then we'll get ourselves unstuck but for now we're just uh just staying calm in the truck and everything's gonna turn out okay this was the spot we stopped as the raging flood came upon us i drove in reverse and jumped my truck up onto the island okay so it's pretty common when you're in a wilderness area we didn't get a chance to check the weather report hey so we didn't know there was going to be some flash floods coming but there was a warning at the end uh it was beautiful weather till we got to the end but we saw a cloud coming which is pretty normal but we got to the end there's a big warning that says as common there are flash floods that run through this area so right away we started to see the flash floods happening as the the hail and the rain was coming down so fast it was pouring off the tops of all of these gorge edges right down on top of us underneath the truck became a river instantly so what we had to do was get our ourselves out of the gorge some and try to get to high ground well what happened is when we got to this point right here as you can see the gorge gets narrow and there's nowhere for the water to go except for on top of the road thankfully we had this other higher part of the road which is now receded some so what i did is i got i saw it coming up up and over the top so i gunned it in reverse but now we're high centered on top of this island so all we got to do is get the turret the tires undug and we're going to put some some rock underneath the front of the tires and try to get the truck to lift up to get it off of being high centered and then we're going to get down into this uh this normal road riverbed and then we'll be able to survey what's going on ahead of us but we're about halfway out of the gorge there's a bunch of people trapped down at the end of the gorge where the trail starts we'll probably get ourselves up on top of this berm right here where this grass is so we're on higher ground and then we'll get a chance to go uh check it out being unstuck but in the moment like anything you got to troubleshoot the situation you got to see what you've got available there's a couple tree branches and some loose rocks so we're gonna we're gonna dig out the truck put the rocks under the front tires i got lockers and four wheel drive so we'll just gently bring this thing out of its hole and get it up the river there so that's kind of where we're at right now there's no there's no need to panic you just gotta stay calm if we ran into a situation where we'd have to bail out on the vehicle we'd just go to high ground thankfully this area here you can see the brush has been here for a long time you got a couple trees uh but this is still high ground even for a runoff like this and we're already starting to see it recede a bit it could take a couple hours to get out of here i don't know what kind of damage is ahead of us but mark my words we will get out of here we were actually quite a bit more high centered than i thought being stuck was a blessing to keep me grounded the road up ahead was unpassable without help from a road raider gotta film the whole thing so you can see it later there's mom celeste and tanner in there despite the four wheel drive and the locker i didn't have a winch and i didn't bring my hijack so i had no tool to pull myself out what i didn't know is when i jumped the truck onto this berm i landed my skid plate on a large bush just driving rebel keep the well right there give him a little bit of gas okay stop stop go go go go within hours rescue crews made their way into the gorge on foot and a helicopter flew overhead they quickly discovered we had valuable information from our video and pictures to help aid in their rescue efforts a rescue helicopter came and offered to get us out logistically i thought it best to get my family to safety and i would stay with the truck alone until the road greater showed up then i could drive out and meet up with them later i knew if they pulled me out i could get the truck and myself out to meet up with them coordinating with the helicopter pilot on the rescue reminded me of my time served in the army national guard aviation group as a soldier thank you to our service professionals who save lives every day hello the kids had an incredible experience flying in a helicopter through the gorge as they also got to see other vehicles stuck ahead of us oh my gosh oh my gosh get it right yeah so the family was finally safe back on dry ground leaving me to work on my own rescue attempt that's kind of a crazy feeling really well i'm out here in the wilderness by myself with a storm coming so but the families out of here and i'm still stuck but uh making good progress so i'm gonna try to record as much as i can of everything that goes on here and i'm actually making pretty good progress here with the with the jack that all the parts on the jack broke the the river is receding nicely if i can just get it off this berm then uh i'll be in a much better spot so i'm just gonna keep jacking it up see if i can make some progress i'm going to give another shot and see if i can get it broke free at this point the skies are relatively clear but i'm still stuck still too high centered it's unbelievable honestly the kids have been such a stinking pain and then to see them go off in that helicopter i don't know words cannot express how i felt about that because that's your family at the end of the day that's the family and they're gonna be so crazy happy to see me okay this is it he's almost here so the uh the road grader is here i'm pretty sure he can pull me out so he uh he's not gonna pull me out but he said that there's the road raider just right behind him so i'm just gonna wait for him i'll just put all these rocks piled up so we know that that's where that's where we got stuck all right there we go right up to here okay [Music] [Music] yeah i got all kinds of stuff okay i'm out but look at this bull crap i was sitting on a freaking bush [Music] i got the spot mark now okay we are out of here as i pulled away from our island of safety you can see just how lucky we were to pause in this spot to admire a large waterfall up ahead there was no place for us to escape the pending flood waters holy cow good grief oh my goodness this is what this is what we would have been stuck in this is so beautiful now look at this the park ranger said flash floods help rejuvenate the landscape but the process is best done without people present it's really pretty here oh my goodness this part right here would have killed us if you look closely you can see how high the water got up in this section capital gorge wash typically gets eight inches of water a year we saw one inch of water in an hour they're gonna be so happy to see me i actually made it i actually made it out of here oh how is that motorhome going to get out of this seriously these guys i'm grateful to these three rescuers who first made contact with us and lifted the spirits of my family even though i didn't know them well my heart went out to them as i drove by and said goodbye my goodness oh wow i got i got stuck there paramedic out to see me even with help from the road grader the road was very wet and very muddy holy cow that was sketchy at this point i was officially leaving the grand wash area i was safe and heading back to meet up with my family okay i guess i get to check myself out look how beautiful it looks out there so every single dip in the road has got mud covering over it it looks like they had to come through here with the bulldozer and clear it all off so that people could come through here this is amazing i guess one of the guys that uh does the search and rescue said that it's never been this bad there is another storm coming there is no way i would have gotten free by myself capital reef you almost killed us what happened to the survivors here's what we know everyone got out alive many were helicopter lifted out of the gorge like my family the rescue crew worked late into the night until everyone was recovered and start the process of pulling out vehicles we know the couple and the red car were airlifted from the submersed roof of their car i believe the black truck managed to get farther up the road ahead of us and was able to get out after the road grader came through the white truck parked next to a ram truck was caught in the flood one of the 12 passenger vans was destroyed and found close by to the white truck we also know the black hatchback floated down the river and was lost from the view the condition of the rest of the vehicles was unknown so i talked to the ranger and you're just right here at the visitor center and so are you josh and you said yeah my name is josh your family's already at the hotel they're going to be so happy to see you oh gosh unbelievable i'll tell you what that's that was why does everything have to be owned this is not funny look at this you got the fire going and the pool over there hey if you're here how'd you get back where's the truck how'd you get back i got back in the truck they kept telling us they never had this they never had such a fast movement oh yeah i'm sure [Music] you know what i did i i piled up a bunch of rocks in that spot where the truck was huh [Music] like what what for us to say this thing but wait how'd you get i'm never going there after having gone through something so traumatic to see a double rainbow at the end of the dangerous adventure was a sign of a blessed return to safety and everyone happy to be together again next time we'll hike the gorge on dry ground without a cloud in the sky yes

Channel: Owens up to something

Views: 5,919,103

Keywords: flash flood, capital gorge, safety, hail, waterfall

Id: FJOpZF_4b-w

Length: 27min 9sec (1629 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 01 2022