Three children are missing after floodwater swept up their vehicle on Friday in central Arizona.
A car was crossing Tonto Creek, about 60 miles west of the New Mexico border, when it was caught in flooding around 4 p.m. local time, Gila County Undersheriff Mike Johnson said.
Four children and one adult managed to get out of the vehicle and were stranded on an island in the middle of the creek, where they were rescued by a helicopter from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, Johnson said.
A woman who was in the water also got out, but three children remain unaccounted for, the undersheriff said.
The children and two adults were all in the car together when it was overtaken by floodwater, Johnson told CNN. It’s unclear how they know each other and how old they all are.
An Arizona Department of Public Safety helicopter joined the search for the children Friday night, along with local authorities and the fire department, Johnson said.
A flood warning was in effect for Gila County until 8:45 p.m. local time, according to the National Weather Service in Phoenix.
“Remain alert for flooding even in locations not receiving rain. Arroyos, streams, and rivers can become raging killer currents in a matter of minutes, even from distant rainfall,” the weather service said in its flood warning announcement.
Missing Persons
Over 600,000 people go missing in the United States every year, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.
Many of the missing adults and children are found safe but others are never found or are found dead.
“It is estimated that 4,400 unidentified bodies are recovered each year, with approximately 1,000 of those bodies remaining unidentified after one year,” the center stated.
According to the FBI (pdf), the National Crime Information Center had over 85,000 active missing person cases across the country as of Dec. 31, 2018. But hundreds of thousands of cases were resolved that year.
Approximately 151,000 missing person records were entered but about the same number were removed.
