Las Vegas Flooding Sweeps People Away as Strip Becomes River

Multiple people have been swept away in flash flooding, after lightning strikes and heavy rainfall hit Las Vegas on Wednesday, turning the famous Strip into a river and causing damage to buildings.

On Thursday morning, police officers responded to several calls regarding people washed away by floodwater, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department confirmed.

Local news station Fox 5 reported that one man had been located near Flamingo Wash stream in Sunrise Manor but could not be rescued. Local law-enforcement officers said there were two other people who had been washed away near Route 15 to the south of the city center; one had been rescued, but another, a woman, was still missing.

It comes just days after the region was battered by tropical storm Hilary, which brought flash flooding to California and left a path of destruction across the Pacific coast of Mexico.

"I talked with a man who witnessed it. He tells me he helped firefighters rescue one friend, but more are missing," Mike Allen, a reporter with the channel, posted to X, formerly Twitter, from the scene. "Police confirm that not everyone was saved."

Fox 5 also reported a similar call-out to the east of the city center, where one of two people had been rescued while a woman was missing.

A Las Vegas police spokesperson told Newsweek that starting around 8:56 p.m. PT (11:56 p.m. ET) on August 23, it had "received multiple reports of individuals caught in drainage channels during heavy rain.

"We responded to these reports to assist the Clark County Fire Department."

Earlier in the day, the National Weather Service (NWS) station in Las Vegas had issued severe thunderstorm and flash-flood warnings for the area. Meteorologists attributed the precipitation to the remnants of tropical depression Harold, a former cyclone that made landfall in Texas on Tuesday.

Thunderstorm conditions were expected to continue in the region through Thursday and Friday, per NWS, with the "greatest rainfall chances will be on Thursday afternoon and evening"—suggesting worse flooding could be yet to come.

Footage from the Las Vegas Strip posted on social media shows approximately ankle-height water rapidly flowing down the road while cars tentatively make their way through the waterlogged roads. "The Vegas Strip is currently a river," one local X account commented.

Videos from Harrah's Las Vegas hotel and casino, on the Strip, show sections of ceiling in the casino having fallen in, with water dripping down on a soaked floor.

A spokesperson for Caesars Entertainment, which now owns Harrah's, confirmed to Newsweek that there had been no injuries as a result of the incident, adding: "Some ceiling tiles at Harrah's Las Vegas were damaged, but the roof did not collapse, and only minor repairs will be necessary.

"They should be completed shortly and will not impact our guests."

The flash flooding is just the most recent occasion in which heavy rains have caused damage to the Strip's casinos. In August 2022, a similar weather event caused rain to pour through the ceilings of several casinos, including Planet Hollywood and Caesars Palace, dousing the gambling tables below.

Update 08/25/23, 3:13 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include comment from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and Caesars Entertainment.