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Officials said on Wednesday that Flash floods killed at least 15 people near Utah’s border with Arizona when a large wall of water and debris triggered by heavy rain swept them away in their cars. In Zion National Park to the north, three people died and four were missing after going to explore canyons, officials said.

Aside those who were swept away by the flood, a number of homes were also destroyed in the process. The occupants have been renders homeless, but the authorities are making efforts to relocate these people.  No one could issue the former residents any warning of the impending flood, hence their inability to prepare or evacuate before the flood overran the street. Properties were also destroyed and a number of vehicles were equally washed away by the flood.

“Another tragedy for our state. Reeling right now,” Utah Lieutenant Governor Spencer Cox said on Twitter. In the small city of Hildale, Utah, hundreds of volunteers were helping to search for one person still missing, Washington County officials said, after the floodwaters swept through streets. “It was an act from God,” Hildale Mayor Phillip Barlow told reporters of the tragedy. “This is something we can’t control. It happened too fast.”

Rescue workers have worked since Monday evening monitoring flood as they cross and searching the banks of Short Creek despite the heavy  showers. Contractors using heavy equipment have worked to clear thousands of tons of mud and debris, and the National Guard has been called in to help with the cleanup. Aside the official record of the missing, the rescue workers have not been able to come across any other victim and it would seem the number victims was just as reported.

“In the flash flooding two occupied vehicles were hit by a large wall of water and debris at the Canyon Street Maxwell Crossing and were carried into the Flood,” Washington County officials said in a statement overnight. Utah Governor, Gary Herbert, said he was “heartbroken,” and that the state has offered its full resources to Hildale to aid the search and rescue effort.

Hildale is home to less than 3,000 people, is twinned with Colorado City, across the border in Arizona. Both cities are home to the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That sect is not affiliated with the Salt Lake City-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which renounced polygamy in 1890.

“It’s the most terrible thing,” said Ross Chatwin, a Hildale resident who is not affiliated with the sect, whose members tend to have little contact with outsiders. “There has been no confrontation,” Chatwin told newsmen of the efforts by non-members to help. “They are allowing everyone to come in freely.”

Separately, three people died and four were missing after going to explore canyons at Zion National Park, less than 20 miles north of Hildale, before Monday’s heavy rains. The park said in a statement their vehicle was found at a trailhead on Monday evening, and a search began on Tuesday.