NEW WAVERLY, Texas - A baby girl is among the victims of flooding in Texas, swept away after her parents' pickup truck was carried by rushing water off a highway.
"As anyone can imagine, it's been really hard on our guys," said Punkin-Everygreen fire chief Rick Stevens.
Stevens and other volunteers from the Punkins-Evergreen Fire Department had been summoned to assist with another rescue at Winters Bayou when they heard screams for help from the baby's parents, about a hundred feet across the water.
"They were in about 40 feet of water in a tree top," Stevens said. "It took about three hours to get to them."
The couple had managed to get their young daughter out of the pickup, but couldn't hold her against the rushing water.
"They were trying to get to the tree and hold on with the baby and the current swept the baby away," Stevens said.
Stevens said the parents were fleeing Houston, driving Highway 150 during the night with their baby girl, trying to get to Louisiana.
"We do have the mother and the father at a location undisclosed right now," he said.
Late Tuesday firefighters located the pick-up truck, but the baby not yet been found.
The same bayou waters that ripped away the little girl from her parents, showed their force a few miles away when Elizabeth Dahlstrom's fiancé left in his pickup to get tarps for their leaky roof – and was almost swept away himself.
"He was frightened, and he was telling me all about it and he was like, 'Oh, no.' The truck started moving off the road,'" said Dahlstrom.
Firefighters arrived just in time.
"Men don't like to admit, but he came pretty close," she said.