Rescue crews continue search for 2 children swept away by Pennsylvania floodwater that killed their mother

By Holly Yan and Emma Tucker, CNN

(CNN) — Crews in Pennsylvania are still searching for two children who were swept away over the weekend by turbulent floodwaters that killed their mother as a violent storm slammed the region.

Matilda “Mattie” Sheils, 2, and her 9-month-old brother, Conrad Sheils, vanished after intense flooding engulfed parts of southeast Pennsylvania on Saturday evening.

The body of their mother, 32-year-old Katie Seley, was found late Saturday.

The crews have searched the entire flood zone, which is about 1.5 miles long, more than a dozen times and they are continuing to search above and below water, Upper Makefield Fire Company Chief Tim Brewer said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference.

If the children are not found by the end of the day, the focus of the search “will shift from a land based and creek based to a dive rescue operation, or a search and rescue operation,” Brewer said.

“That will mean underwater assets mainly in the creek and we will work out from there,” Brewer said, adding the crews will still have canine units as part of the search, but those assets will begin to “scale down” from tomorrow.

On Monday, a family member acting as a spokesperson expressed the family’s gratitude to the searchers.

“Their compassion, kindness and bravery have given us strengthen in this unspeakably difficult time,” said Scott Ellis, brother-in-law of Jim Sheils, Seley’s fiancé, at an afternoon news conference.

Seley was among five people who died after storms pummeled Bucks County over the weekend, according to Brewer.

The Bucks County coroner identified the other victims as Enzo Depiero, 78, and Linda Depiero, 74, of Newtown Township; Susan Barnhart, 53, of Titusville, New Jersey; and Yuko Love, 64, of Newtown Township. According to a news release from the coroner, they all died from drowning. Love’s cause of death was listed as drowning with multiple injuries.

Over the past month, parts of interior New England and the Northeast have seen 200% to 300% of their average monthly rainfall, leading to last week’s disastrous flooding in parts of Vermont, New York and western Massachusetts.

Victims were ‘caught’ in flash flood

Floods are among the deadliest weather hazards in the US, according to the National Weather Service. It only takes 2 feet of rushing water to carry away most vehicles, including pickups and SUVs, according to the weather service.

A flash flood can happen anywhere intense rain falls faster than the soil can absorb, and generally happen within a short time period after rain, making them more life-threatening, according to the National Weather Service.

The victims didn’t travel into already high water, Brewer emphasized at Monday’s news conference. “They were caught,” he said. “This was a flash flood. … The wall of water came to them.”

The Sheils children and their family were visiting from South Carolina and were driving to a barbecue when the flash flooding hit, Brewer said Sunday.

The mother and a grandmother grabbed Mattie and Conrad. The father grabbed the children’s 4-year-old brother.

The father and the 4-year-old “miraculously” made it to safety, the fire chief said. But the mother, grandmother and younger children were swept away.

The children’s grandmother survived and was treated at a hospital, police said.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

CNN’s Sara Smart contributed to this report.