Inside chaos of fatal flash floods near the Delaware, and the 11 days that followed

One routine fire call, then Tim Brewer could finally shower and take his wife out to dinner after a long Saturday of moving his daughter halfway across the state.

The Upper Makefield fire chief didn’t have to go. A blown transformer didn’t require his expertise.

But the height of the vacation season left the firehouse short staffed — he only had 15 volunteers available, instead of 25. This kind of call would be quick.

For the seven minute drive to Aqueduct Road and Washington Crossing Road, better known as State Route 532, it was raining hard, but nothing the windshield wipers couldn’t handle.

As he crossed Highland Road, things changed.

“It was like night and day,” he recalled. "What the hell is this?”

As he crawled down Wrightstown Road to where it meets Route 532, he heard radio calls for downed trees, and an alarm call. His battalion chief reported heavy water and multiple vehicles in water on Route 532.

The radio went silent.

“I couldn’t understand why, but later I found out,” Brewer said.

More on the flash floods of 7/15 Five now dead, two children missing, in Delaware River flooding in Bucks County

More: Remembering the seven lives lost in July 15, 2023 Upper Makefield fatal flood

Eleven vehicles carrying 19 people were on Route 532 near Stonebridge Crossing Road when an angry wall of water no one could have anticipated consumed the road. Eleven people would go into the violent deluge unleashed in a summer flash flood. Seven would never be seen alive again.

A search and rescue mission the scope of which few suburban communities ever experience began. For the next 11 days, Brewer stayed on what started as a quick, routine call. He would oversee a complex and heart-wrenching effort, one that a grieving and shocked community watched unfold as they tried to understand how rain could be so devastating.

Tuesday marks one month since the worst mass casualty event in Upper Makefield. Until now none of the dozens of first responders have spoken in detail about that violent night and the brutal days that followed.

This disaster was like none Brewer experienced in 43 years as a firefighter, 30 of them as a chief, including Hurricane Ida, the 2021 storm that he previously used as the benchmark.

What Upper Makefield fire chief saw at outset of fatal flash floods

A section of Route 532 just past where it intersects with Taylorsville Road sweeps downhill before flattening at a bridge over a drainage creek. Steep embankments hug the asphalt. Cellphones and other wireless devices strain for a signal bar. Brewer calls this area the “Hollow.”

There has never been any flooding here, which is why when his battalion chief, Dave Wise, reported heavy water on the road, Brewer was confused.

When he arrived, Brewer saw Wise’s truck at the edge of a roiling river where Stonebridge Crossing Road starts.  Then something caught his eye.  A person floating past in the fast water. Then another.

Next, it was an SUV, its front bumper submerged lifting the vehicle vertical as it bobbed past him like a buoy. Brewer would later learn its 16-year-old driver, who survived, was trapped inside.

Following the SUV was a red car doing barrel rolls. Its driver, Dahlia Galindez, 61, of Charlestown, South Carolina, was swept into the water with her daughter, Katie Seley, and two grandchildren.

Reverse lights brought Brewer’s attention back to Wise’s truck as it backed out of the water. Brewer knew why that call from Wise went silent minutes earlier.

Wise rescued James Sheils and his 4-year–old son Jack, who were now in the truck.

“Chief, this guy just saw his wife and two children and the grandmother go down the creek,” the battalion chief said.

On the other side of Route 532, Upper Makefield Police Officer Harry Vitello had just rescued a woman trapped in her car. He put her on the hood of Wise’s truck, before grabbing the front bumper to walk himself out of the water.

Quickly, Brewer did the math in his head. Four people are missing, maybe as many as eight. He saw two cars in the water and Wise said he saw a Tesla float downstream.

“I’m just looking back up at this water and I’m trying to think to myself, first of all, where is this water coming from? Then I thought to myself, this isn’t your problem where it’s coming from. Right now, we need to figure out what is going on downstream.”

Brewer grew up in Upper Makefield. He knows Houghs Creek. He believed he knew where the water was headed.

Search and rescue operation begins amid chaos near Delaware River

Once his bearings returned, Brewer's decades of emergency training kicked in.

He directed Wise to get his binoculars and see if he could find out how many other cars were stuck on Route 532.  He estimated the water at least 4 feet deep because it was over the guardrails.

“What was left of the guardrails,” Brewer corrected.

The flood water was powerful enough to grab a Tesla and so loud the first responders had to scream to be heard.

The water made roads impassable for crews enroute. That first hour the rain did not slow. The weak wireless service meant the police radios didn’t work well, making communication in the field at times impossible.

Veteran Upper Makefield firefighter Bart Krauss called Brewer to let him know he was headed to the firehouse. Did he need anything?

Get the inflatable rescue boat, and as many personal floatation devices as he could fit in the utility truck, Brewer ordered, and get over to Route 532 near Stonebridge Crossing Road.

Back in his truck, Brewer headed back up the hill to better his chance for radio service.  As he reached the top, the first swift water rescue team from Titusville, New Jersey arrived.

He told the four men at least four people were missing, three cars in chest-high water.

The crew was stunned.

“Chief, it’s not raining in New Jersey. Route 29 is dry as a bone.”

Finding the first survivors of the flash floods. Where is my wife?

By 7 p.m. one of the rescue teams found three survivors trapped on an island in the middle of Houghs Creek, a remote ribbon of water that winds five miles through heavy woods to empty into the mouth of the Delaware River.

But the creek had ballooned to nearly half the width of a football field.

The first team could not reach the survivors. Fifteen minutes later, the second team coming from the west arrived.

Upper Makefield firefighter Conner Gromlich, a 24-year-old with the U.S. Coast Guard, tied a rope around himself and crawled across a downed tree to the island, while two Newtown Township firefighters held the rope.

Three times Gromlich entered the deep water with a survivor and let the current swing them downstream like a pendulum to safety, where others pulled them ashore.

During the half hour it took to rescue the first two, the flood water dropped 5 feet. The third time, Gromlich walked to the island.

The first survivor, Newtown Township resident David Love, was the most seriously injured. But he immediately told rescuers he was looking for his wife, Yuko, 64.

The couple had been driving in the Tesla that Wise saw, but they abandoned it when waist-high water started seeping in. Yuko was swept out of his arms when the water pulled David under the guardrail.

Over the radio, Brewer heard what Love said.

“I’m just like, OK, we knew about the family. Now he’s looking for his wife, so that’s five.”

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About a half hour after the survivors were brought ashore, the first victim was pulled out of Houghs Creek.

Enzo DePiero, 78, was found below Crossing Farm Lane, about 500 yards south of Route 532, where Brewer believes the floodwaters grabbed him.

Susan Barnhart, 53, of Titusville, was found 30 yards from DiPietro. Another 30 yards away was Katie Seley, 32, of Charleston, South Carolina. All three were tangled in debris.

Married 4 decades, they died together They spent more than 40 years together. The fatal flooding took their lives

Susan Barnhart, animal lover, well known Titusville resident killed in Upper Makefield flooding known to always lend a helping hand

Seley had already been reported missing. Her fiance James Sheils, and son, Jack, were rescued hours earlier.

Rescue teams assembled ropes and complicated rigging to bring the victims up the steep hill.

At this point, Bart Krauss had returned to the station, which served as a temporary morgue, after participating in two rescues and assisting the team that found the three victims.

He immediately recognized Barnhart, a popular employee at the Washington Crossing Post Office.

“This was all really disorienting," he said. "It just smacked you hard in the face.”

Krauss paused between each of his next three words.

“It. Was. Awful.”

Missing grandma is alive after Delaware River floods

Back on Route 532, a New Hope Fire Co. team in a high-water truck checked abandoned cars. At the command center, police interviewed survivors, and ran license plates to identify owners.

The plate check revealed the identities of victims Enzo DePietro and Barnhart. But Enzo wasn’t alone. Police confirmed he and his wife Linda, 74, had gone out to dinner earlier Saturday.

Now, five people were confirmed missing.

Around 8 p.m. Brewer learned that Galindez, the grandmother of the missing children, was alive. She made her way to a home on Stonebridge Crossing Road.

It was the last good news first responders would hear that night.

Galindez confirmed that her daughter, Katie, had 9-month-old son, Conrad, in her arms when they went into the water. Galindez held her granddaughter, Mattie, when they were swept under the guardrail. Water powerful enough to bend guardrails dragged Mattie out of her arms.

As the night slipped past 11 p.m. searchers knew that two women and two children were missing. Love’s Tesla was found a mile downstream, where it had slammed into a 90-degree turn in the creek. The car was empty.

The waters were still nine feet deep in places. It was raining on and off. The search area was saturated, raising fears of another flash flood. The 70 first responders were exhausted. Road closures meant it would take hours to get more resources.

For safety, search operations were called off for the night. They would start up again at 6 a.m.

“It was a really tough decision to make,” Brewer said. “Then, our teams come back and they said, ‘Chief, the likelihood anybody could have survived, it’s going to be almost zero.’”

The search for Conrad and Mattie Sheils marked by disbelief, heartbreak

Bucks County Emergency Management arranged for the Philadelphia Fire Department's elite Task Force One to organize and oversee the rest of the search. More than 100 volunteers were ready to assist.

Brewer was the first one at the fire station, a half-hour before Task Force One arrived with its convoy of equipment.

Around lunchtime Sunday, Yuko Love and Linda DePiero were found about 100 yards apart, one mile south of Taylorsville Road below Aqueduct Road.

That left only the children. They could be anywhere, Brewer knew, but he suspected they were hidden in the debris.

The number of debris mountains, and their size, was breathtaking. The smallest were 5 to 6 feet high.  Others were 12 feet or higher and tightly packed.

Dogs trained to smell death signaled at four of the six piles. Brewer wanted those disassembled first.

Dozens of first responders spent hours on hands and knees Monday and Tuesday, digging through rubble in 90-degree heat.

Every time a toy, baby bottle or piece of kid’s clothing was pulled out, hearts skipped a beat. Brewer had to keep reminding people those items could have been there before the flood. The water could have brought it there from somewhere else.

The dogs kept signaling. But still, no Conrad or Mattie.

On Thursday and Friday, rescuers brought in heavy equipment and gently separated each layer of the largest and most dense debris piles. The dogs signaled, but the deeper into each pile, the less interest they showed.

Throughout the week, there were discussions about the possibility the children could have entered the Delaware River. Brewer was among the skeptics.

Marine and boat crews combed from Route 532 to the Delaware. The islands along the river were checked, and rechecked. Brewer wanted to put divers in the river, but it was too dangerous for even the most experienced units.

At 5 p.m. on Friday, July 21, rescuers called off the search for the sixth time. Twenty minutes later, Brewer’s cellphone rang.

He was driving over Washington Crossing Bridge into New Jersey, on his way to his wife’s retirement party. A Philadelphia police lieutenant was on the line.

We may have found the little girl near the Betsy Ross Bridge, he said.

Upper Makefield flash flood victims 6 Philadelphia Medical Examiner confirms Bucks County fatal flood victim, Mattie Sheils, 2, pulled from Delaware River

“My heart just sank,” Brewer said. “Then my wife looked at me and said, ‘You need to go handle this. You need to go handle this now.’”

Brewer dropped his wife off and drove home to put his uniform back on. His phone rang nonstop.

One of the callers was a Philadelphia marine captain. He told Brewer that he has been on the water for more than 30 years. This was the first time he had a body float 32 miles the way Mattie did.

“The amount of water that had to be, to push this poor little girl out into the river,” he said still in disbelief.

On Saturday, Brewer had boats and marine units back in the Delaware River, from below Morrisville to Marcus Hook, south of Philadelphia.

But he was running out of places to search. The computerized map in the firehouse had so many GPS pins that Houghs Creek disappeared.

“It's the needle in the haystack,” Brewer said.

After a meeting with the Sheils family, a decision was made. After 11 days, the active search for Conrad was suspended.  His tiny body has never been found.

Search suspended for lost 9-month-old Upper Makefield suspends search for Conrad Sheils, baby lost in Delaware River flood

For Upper Makefield firefighters, first responders the flash floods are not over

At the Upper Makefield Fire Co., July 15 will never really be over.

There are still reports to file, camera footage to review and people to interview. All of it will be folded into a forthcoming post-mortem critique of the disaster that Brewer will prepare for his firefighters.

While July 15 was not the biggest disaster Brewer has handled, it was the worst.

“Everyone has asked me, how do you describe it and I said, violence. It was just sheer violence,” he said. “The most violent water I've ever seen.”

In 2021, Hurricane Ida showed him how vulnerable his riverfront community is, Brewer said. Roads that never flooded before became swimming pools. Crews made 22 rescues, mostly people who ignored barricades or got lost and stuck in high water. But no one died.

This summer storm opened eyes again, Brewer said.

As he drove to that wires call the first night, he could see the storm was bad, but he didn’t realize how bad it could be, Brewer said.

Since then, he’s reached out to township officials and surrounding fire companies about planning and coordination, so if there is a next time, they’ll be better prepared. He immediately requested a laminated detailed map of every body of water running through the township.

He sees a renewed sense of motivation and purpose among his company’s members. Recently he no sooner sent an email to members gauging interest in upcoming swift-water rescue classes, when he got five “yes” responses.

But the storm remains present. For Brewer. For other responders.

In the immediate chaos, first responders learn to put emotion behind a locked door. But the door has to open sometime.

For Brewer it was after he returned home that first night. First when his wife of 35 years, who was waiting up, asked if he was OK. The second time was three hours later, when he found himself back at Route 532 and Stonebridge Crossing Road.

He was alone, but for the police officers guarding the nearby road block. Houghs Creek was asleep in its banks again. The silence was haunting.

Brewer walked up and down the road absorbing the kind of destruction he’d seen on TV news happening somewhere else.

“It’s disoriented, you almost felt disoriented,” he said.

He took another moment to grieve before walking back.

“This is what we do, this is who we are,” he told himself. “We have four people to go find. We are going to find them. Let’s go.”

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This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Upper Makefield firefighters reflect on fatal flash floods a month later