As community gathers for Upper Makefield flood vigil, organizers talk of miracles

The Washington Crossing United Methodist Church is no stranger to grief.

Last year the church opened its doors to the classmates, families and the community to mourn together under the warmth of candlelight the loss of two Upper Makefield boys fatally wounded after their mother allegedly shot them in the head as they slept.

In past years its gymnasium has served as an emergency shelter for victims of hurricanes and flood damage with nowhere safe to go.

On July 15, the church was once again called into active duty. This time in a way it had never experienced before. To its pastor, George Clash, it’s more evidence of divine intervention on a day when unexplained coincidences saved lives.

Rarely is anyone at the church on a Saturday around dinner time, but youth group leaders were taking care of last-minute details for a mission trip set to leave the next day. The group was bound for Lumberton, North Carolina, to help a poor community still recovering from Hurricane Ida damage.

Family Pastor Shari Bonet, one of the trip chaperones, was supposed to drop off a second car for the trip at the church Saturday morning, but the day got away from her.

Around 6 p.m. she and her husband made the half-hour drive from their Doylestown home to the church to find its parking lot filled with emergency vehicles and marine units, she said.

We need your building: How a church became the epicenter of a catastrophic tragedy

The church’s tech guy was working on the sound and visual systems for the Sunday morning worship service when a frantic Upper Makefield police officer flagged him down.

We need your building, Clash said the officer told the member.

For the next three days, the Wrightstown Road church served as the epicenter of emergency response to catastrophic flooding in Upper Makefield. It’s a short walk from the roads, along which the worst, and deadliest, flooding occurred after upwards of 6 inches of rain overwhelmed the narrow Houghs Creek, which flows into the nearby Delaware River.

During the first hours after the floods when so much was still unknown, roughly four dozen people sought sanctuary, including survivors who were rescued or escaped from waist-high violent floodwaters after they became trapped along nearby Washington Crossing Road.

Volunteers offered them coffee, dry clothes, blankets and shoulders to cry on and hands to hold tight as they waited for word about the missing.

Eleven vehicles were in the area of the 1000 block of Washington Crossing Road near Stonebridge Crossing Road when the crushing waters from the overwhelmed banks of Houghs Creek hit, officials said.

A total of 12 people survived the floods, including a husband and three family members of the five victims confirmed dead. Two siblings, both under 3 years old, are the last victims who remain unaccounted for.

That awful night Bonet prayed with a man who was on the phone with his wife when her car was stuck in the fast-rising water.  She told him the water was getting too high before he lost the connection.

Emergency responders found her cellphone inside her car, but the wife was unaccounted for.

Another survivor said she was trapped in her car as the water pushed it off the road, but then a tire got stuck on something and it stopped moving. Shortly after she was able to escape to safety, Bonet said.

‘You can't help but feel the humanity of it’

On Thursday night, the church opened its doors for a second time in less than a week to congregants, victims, survivors, their families, friends, first responders and strangers searching for answers to what is unexplainable.

At least 300 people filled the sanctuary including friends and family of the five known victims, and two still missing children for the hour-long service that features singing and the lighting of candles.

The congregation and surrounding community has experienced an overwhelming sense of grief and loss that knows no municipal boundary lines, he added.

Of the confirmed dead, none lived in Upper Makefield.

The missing children, Conrad, 9 months, and Mattie Sheils, 2, are from Charleston South Carolina.

Firefighters rescued their father, Jim Sheils and 4-year-old brother, Jack. Seley’s mother, Dahlia Galindez, 62, was one of two people caught in flood waters who escaped and found their way to a private home on Stonebridge Crossing Road, officials said.

On Thursday and again Friday, rescue teams resumed the search for the children after a weather-related delay stalled efforts Wednesday. The resources included dogs, a diving unit, and heavy equipment to move mountain-high piles of debris so searchers can shift through them once more.

The five who perished in the flashfloods Remembering the faces of those who lost their lives to the Upper Makefield fatal floods

The missing children’s mother, Katie Seley, 32, also of Charleston, is the youngest of the known victims, who include Susan Barnhart, 53, of Titusville, a postcard town bordering Upper Makefield on the New Jersey side; Enzo and Linda DePiero, 78, and 74, respectively; and Yuko Love, 64, all who lived in Newtown Township.

Clash described his sorrow like a lead weight.  He and others at the church knew Barnhart, who worked at the Washington Crossing post office.

“Even if you are not directly connected to it, you can’t help but feel the humanity of it,” he said. “It’s something our community feels. The worst thing is handling these emotions alone.”

Small miracles and divine intervention

In the days since that horrible storm, Clash has found some solace in what he considers small miracles that happened like Bonet getting too busy to drop off the car for the mission trip earlier.

It was 5:26 p.m. when Upper Makefield police and Upper Makefield Fire Co. responded to a call at Route 532 and Aqueduct Road for a report of a lightning strike on a utility pole transformer.

They never found a damaged utility pole that took them out during the deadly storm. What they did encounter was far more dangerous.

Police officers driving west encountered an impassable wall of water in the 900 block of Washington Crossing Road. The water stopped fire crews traveling east one block up.

As they arrived firefighters saw three vehicles on the road vanish into the five-foot high floodwaters, some taking their drivers and passengers.

The first responders immediately began rescue efforts, assisting people trapped in vehicles, pulling to safety people clinging to guardrails and tree branches who otherwise might have been lost to the creek.

“That is the sovereign moment,” Clash said Thursday, hours before the vigil, and repeated it to the crowd. “When the Lord wanted to spare as many lives. It’s really appearing more and more like God’s hands were here.”

The husband of a survivor gave Clash another of those moments.

The man said that his wife was swept out of her car and grabbed ahold of a teenage boy in the rushing waters. The two clung to each other and random tree branches while they waited for rescuers.

His wife went into mom-mode immediately to distract the terrified boy, the husband told Clash. As it turned out he was a friend of the couple’s son. Family members were among the hundreds who attend the vigil.

“I have never cried so much for people I don’t know,” he added. “When you are dealing with pain like this, there is nowhere to turn but to the Lord.”

More: They spent more than 40 years together. The fatal flooding took their lives

More: Before the fatal floods took her life, Yuko Love was known for her kind, loving spirit

A closer look at the Seley-Sheils family South Carolina family torn apart by Upper Makefield fatal floods identified

More: Titusville resident killed in Upper Makefield flooding known to always lend a helping hand

More: South Carolina mom who died in Upper Makefield flooding was proud mama, sister, friend

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Upper Makefield flood vigil brings community, responders together