Floods of this nature are fairly common in the desert Southwest during the summer. We saw them fairly frequently in Canyon de Chelly; my Navajo crew members could identify the side drainage where the rain occurred from the color of the muddy water.

My most disastrous SAR incident was a flash flood of this nature which swept through a popular area (Tanque Verde Falls) one Sunday afternoon, killing seven people. We were a week in recovering the bodies.

It is a very bad idea to camp in close proximity to stream or dry gullies for this reason.