A South Carolina mom is dead and two of her children are missing after flooding swept away their family in Pennsylvania, officials said.
The kids — both younger than 3 years old — vanished as their mother and grandmother tried to save them from the “raging” floodwaters, according to the Upper Makefield Township Police Department in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
The children’s mother was among five people dead after the area saw up to 7 inches of rain in 45 minutes on Saturday, July 15, WHYY reported. A video police shared on Facebook shows a deluge of water rushing over a guardrail.
While police in their Facebook posts didn’t share details about the other people who died, they said the mother was part of a family heading to a barbecue during a visit from Charleston, South Carolina. The relatives were on a road about 35 miles northeast of Philadelphia when a “torrential rainstorm” hit the area, leaving their vehicles “caught in the flash flood,” officers wrote.
“Dad, miraculously, was able to get himself and their 4 year-old son to safety, but the mother and grandmother who were trying to get their 2 other children, ages 9 months and 2 years to safety, were all swept away by the raging (floodwaters),” police wrote. “Unbelievably, the grandmother survived and was treated at a local hospital.”
But the children’s mom disappeared, then first responders reported finding her body. Police did not identify her in their posts.
As of early July 17, the search continues for the woman’s missing 2-year-old daughter and baby son. Officers said boats, drones and sonar technology are among the tools being used to look for them along the Delaware River.
“We are all in grieving over the loss of life we have seen,” officers wrote in a July 16 post on Facebook. “However, our commitment to finding the two children who are still missing is unwavering as we will do all that we can to bring them home to their loved ones.”