Tactics to change as search for kids lost to fatal flooding comes up empty on third day
UPPER MAKEFIELD - With all five victims identified, the focus is now on finding Conrad and Mattie.
But on the third day of the massive search, authorities came up empty.
“An update: the two are still missing,” said Upper Makefield Fire Chief Tim Brewer at an afternoon briefing for media at the United Methodist Church in Washington Crossing.
The young children, siblings from South Carolina, were ripped from their family's arms as they struggled to get to safety amid a torrent of floodwater spilling from Houghs Creek Saturday.
Their mother, Katie Seley, 32, was found dead that night. She had been holding one of the children. Seley's mother held the other child, but lost her grip. The woman was rescued Saturday evening. Seley's fiance and the couple's oldest child also survived.
But Mattie and Conrad have not been seen since. Rescue crews have been searching — and hoping — since.
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Have the missing children in the flood been found?
"It's anyone's guess where they are," Brewer said earlier this week.
At the Tuesday news briefing, he said teams have trekked and probed an area south of Route 532.
“Do realize that we have searched the entire flood zone more than a dozen times,” he said. “We’ve tracked an area that’s 1.5 miles long, and the tracking logs are over 160 miles, meaning that we have backtracked several times resulting in 160 miles of tracking, and it roughly covers an area of about 117 acres.”
If searchers don’t find the children Tuesday, tactics change.
“The focus of the search will shift from a land-based and creek-based to a dive/rescue operation,” he said.
That means underwater gear will be deployed mainly in the creek, and the ground search will “scale down,” he said.
A search effort as unprecedented in the township as last weekend's deadly disaster remains under way, with local, state and federal authorities employing drones, dogs, boats and boots in a heavily wooded and treacherous area near where the Hough's Creek catastrophe unfolded Saturday evening.
As heavy summer rains pounded the central county and saturated already soggy ground, unsuspecting motorists in eleven vehicles found themselves trapped in rising waters in the 1000 block of Washington Crossing Road, also called state Route 532.
Some called county 911 for help as others left their vehicles seeking safety. Among those who tried to flee to safety were Jim Sheils, his fiance Katie Seley, their three children, Jack, 4, Mattie, 2 and Conrad, nine months, and Katie's mother. Jim Sheils had Jack, Katie had Conrad, and Katie's mother had Mattie. The churning water swept Katie, Conrad and Mattie away. Jim and Katie's mother miraculously survived.
The floodwaters shoved cars into a guardrail like a kid might shove a toy, even flipping one, as motorists' sought safety. It was coincidence that the Upper Makefield Fire Department had just been dispatched to the area on a call of a lightning strike on a utility pole, close to the scene.
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Among those who witnessed the tragedy was Brewer, who with his crew began rescue operations and saved at least eight people, including a firefighter in a command car after it became trapped in rising water.
None of the drivers had tried to drive through the floodwaters, Brewer said. A wall of water simply came, surrounded them and rose quickly. Brewer and his crew watched helplessly as motorists were swept from their grasp.
A cubic square foot of water contains 7.48 gallons and weighs 62 pounds. Last weekend's storm sent tens of thousands of cubic square feet of water rushing down Hough's Creek, its speed accelerated by the nearly 100 foot drop it takes on its sloping, two-mile run to the Delaware River.
"That kind of water has the power to move cars off the road," Brewer said. "Now imagine what that force can do to a person."
Or a child.
Flash flood warnings had been posted by the National Weather Service on Saturday.
"But none of these people were expecting it," he said.
JD Mullane can be reached at 215-949-5745 or at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Efforts to shift as search for kids lost in fatal flooding continue