HIKERS RESCUED AFTER FIERCE STORMS

A helicopter rescued hikers clinging to tree branches and perched on boulders as fast-moving floodwaters tore through a normally quiet creek in Arizona, where unpredictable summer storms rapidly wash churning torrents into canyons and overwhelm those looking to take advantage of cooler weather.

Seventeen hikers got stranded Sunday in a scenic canyon on the outskirts of Tucson, just over a week after a flash flood killed 10 members of an extended family more than 300 kilometres to the north.

The final two hikers were lifted to safety Monday from Tanque Verde Falls at Redington Pass after they spent the night stuck on the side of a cliff in the rocky, narrow canyon, authorities said.

There was no immediate indication that any of the hikers were seriously injured.

Though “everyone is ac- counted for and everyone is alive,” the rescues are a reminder of the dangers of flash flooding during the monsoon, when bursts of heavy rain can overwhelm usually calm waterways, said Deputy Cody Gress, a Pima County sheriff ’s spokesman.

When rains ease tripledigit summer temperatures, people often go hiking when the danger of flash flooding has skyrocketed, the agency said. On July 15, a large family celebrating a birthday at a swimming hole in central Arizona was swept away by a wall of water that cascaded down a canyon without warning after a storm.

On Sunday, a police helicopter lowered a rescuer to eight hikers, including a 4- year- old boy, fastening them to a hoist that hauled them one by one to waiting rescuers on the side of the mountain creek.