Flash floods hit several towns in Washington County on Thursday, while a prolonged “moderate-to-heavy rain event” caused the Escalante River in Garfield County to rise significantly.

Hurricane, in Washington County, saw between one and two inches of rainfall in an hour on Thursday morning along Gould’s Wash, said Glen Merrill, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service’s Salt Lake City office.

Elsewhere in Washington County, Merrill said there were several rounds of flash flooding at Zion National Park. The National Park Service announced Wednesday it had closed the Virgin River Narrows and all slot canyons, in anticipation of the flash floods.

Flooding was also reported in New Harmony, Merrill said, and in Virgin along the Kolob Terrace Road.

In Garfield County, prolonged rains dropped as much as 3½ inches of rain in 36 hours in the Escalante River basin, Merrill said. Trails along the river were inundated, he said, but no structures were harmed.

“They’ve got really good engineering in place to handle high flows,” Merrill said, adding that the Escalante had 1,620 cubic feet of water per second flowing at the storm’s peak Thursday.

In southeastern Utah, “pretty much all the waterways … are running high and fast,” Merrill said. For example, he said the Paria River went from practically no flow to 2,600 cubic feet per second.

“Imagine 2,600 basketballs are rolling down, but it’s water,” Merrill said.

Hurricane Mayor Clark Fawcett declared a local emergency, as emergency crews responded to flash floods and infrastructure damage across the community.

Some 80 residential homes and 50 recreational vehicles at the Willow Wind RV Park were hit by the flooding, according to a news release from the city. The extent of the damage, and how long residents will be displaced, was still being determined, the release said.

Rain was expected to continue in southern Utah through midnight Thursday, then diminish into Friday.

Then it’s northern Utah’s turn, though “not with the same intensity or impacts,” Merrill said. “In a lot of ways, it’s a very beneficial rain [in the north].”

Correction • Oct. 22, 9:30 p.m.: This story has been updated to correct a quote about the amount of water that swelled in the Paria River.