Five people are dead and a toddler and 9-month old are still missing following a flash flood outside of Philadelphia on Saturday.
Drivers were trapped along the roadway of Washington Crossing in Bucks County around 5:30 p.m. when rain began to fall — six and one-half to seven inches of it in a span of 45 minutes, WFMZ reported.
A father and daughter were riding along Washington Crossing on a motorcycle when the flash flooding began, New York Times reported. Eli Weissman, 65, told the Times that they were only five miles away from home when the storm began.
“Then this water just came rushing down the road,” Weissman said. “It was like a dam burst or something,” he added. “It was just nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
The pair were thrown off their motorcycle and found themselves floating in water estimated to be eight feet deep.
“We were floating down and trying to survive the rapids, you know, feet first, clinging to trees, clinging to vines, anything we could cling to,” Mr. Weissman said. “It was so fast and so deep.”
Three cars were swept away in the flooding, one of them belonging to a South Carolina family with the missing toddler and 9-month old.
The family was headed to a barbeque when the flash flooding began. The father grabbed the four-year-old son from the car; while the mother and grandmother struggled to remove the toddler and nine month old. The four of them were swept away; the mother’s body was found Saturday night. The grandmother was found alive and treated at the hospital, but the children remain missing.
“We cannot imagine what the family is going through with two beautiful children gone,” said Chief Tim Brewer of Upper Makefield Fire Company, in a news conference Sunday afternoon.
Responders recovered a man and two women — including the South Carolina mother — on Saturday, and the bodies of two more women on Sunday. Crews were able to rescue eight people trapped in their vehicles.
Following Saturday night’s flash flooding, flash flood warnings were in effect in parts of Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, and Maine. Thunderstorms delayed flights at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and Kennedy International Airport in New York.
