How the Upper Makefield flooding happened: A timeline of tragedy

The first weather warning came at dinner time Saturday night as a loud alarm on cellphones.

More bulletins followed throughout the night.

The National Weather Service in Mount Holly, New Jersey reported that flash floods were imminent in Bucks County from torrential downpours that began two hours earlier, around 4 p.m.

 “This is a dangerous and life threatening situation. Do not attempt to travel unless you are fleeing an area subject to flooding or under an evacuation order.”

Before the rains stopped early Sunday, the Delaware River was a foot higher. Roughly three miles inland, on the usually gentle Houghs Creek, an unprecedented catastrophe had claimed lives.

Witnesses to tragedy: 'We've never seen anything like it': What they saw when the floods came to Upper Makefield

Houghs Creek banks give way

Houghs Creek typically whispers barely noticed along rocky banks and lush woodlands on its five-mile run to the Delaware River.

But Saturday July 15 the flood zone surrounding its banks were already waterlogged after some 6 inches fell of rain over two hours. Shortly before 5:30 p.m., muddy, roiling water roared downhill toward Washington Crossing Road, state Route 532. It would crash down on the highway where nearly 20 travelers in eleven vehicles had no idea it was coming.

At 5:26 p.m., local police and the Upper Makefield Fire Co. responded to a call close by at Route 532 and Aqueduct Road for a report of a lightning strike on a utility pole transformer. Police officers coming from the west on Route 532 found that intersection flooded, but as they continued made it to the 900 block of Washington Crossing Road, the road was impassable.

The Upper Makefield Fire Co. crew traveled east on 532 toward the location of the call, and made it to the 1000 block of Washington Crossing Road, arriving at a chaotic scene that fire Chief Tim Brewer said he'd never witnessed in 44 years of service.

Rescues begin in Upper Makefield

As the travelers converged on the 1000 block of Washington Crossing Road, near Stonebridge Road, the floodwater from Houghs Creek arrived. At first, the water was maybe two inches deep flowing across the road. Quickly, it became a torrent that crashed down a hillside and rose fast to five feet. It kept rising as motorists, some who had desperately tried to turn around, abandoned their cars, seeking safety.

For seven, there was no way out.

Arriving firefighters watched three vehicles vanish into the raging waters, some taking drivers and passengers with them.

Rescues began. As the flood raged, a first responder whose car had been inundated had to be pulled from the water, Brewer said.

The water lifted cars and set them floating. It flipped others that had been shoved into a guardrail. Brewer and his team, along with police officers, rescued ten motorists either from their cars or from the water.

"It was fast and it was violent," Brewer said.

A survivor described to reporters that the water rose so high, he could not touch bottom. He saved himself by grabbing trees or vines to keep from being tossed downstream.

A family member of a woman caught in the water told a reporter that she survived by clinging to the guardrail, the force of the water pushing her hard like a bully, the guardrail's metal edge gouging her hands.

At least two people were swept away after they abandoned their cars.  At least one person was found inside the car that was swallowed by the water.

Victims recovered from floodwaters

From the 11 cars traveling along Route 532 when the floods hit, 10 people were rescued, officials said.

Two who were swept away managed to pull themselves out, seeking help at a home on Stonebridge Crossing Road. Both were treated at a hospital.

One of them was the 62-year-old mother of a South Carolina woman who was also grabbed by floodwaters along with two of her children.

Five people were lost, two remain missing. The vehicle of one victim was found about a mile and half from where it went into the creek, Brewer said.

The confirmed dead, Katie Seley, 32, Susan Barnhart, 53, Yuko Love, 64, and Enzo and Linda DePiero, who were 78 and 74 respectively, were all found in the area of Houghs Creek south of Rt. 532.

Linda and Enzo DePiero: They spent more than 40 years together. The fatal flooding took their lives

Seley, Barnhart and Enzo DePiero were found late Saturday. Love was found Sunday morning and shortly after Linda DePiero was found about 100 yards from Love.

The search, rescue and recovery operations are unprecedented in Bucks County, with up to 150 searchers and support staff deployed along the creek and manning a command center at Station 71, the township firehouse. Inside the room is muted and intense. Men sit gazing at laptop screens. On nearby tables are color printouts of the search area. Resources are in from all levels of government. Equipment and personnel were recruited from Central New Jersey and as far south as Delaware and Chester counties to aid the search.

On Wednesday, the efforts to recover the two unaccounted, Seley’s children, Conrad, 9-months-old, and his sister, Matilda, 2, was paused due to another bout of intemperate weather.

The children slipped from the arms of their mother and grandmother who were also swept into the flood.

The grandmother, Dahlia Galindez, of Charleston, South Carolina, survived and was treated for minor injuries, officials said. Rescuers pulled Seley’s fiance, Jim Sheils, and their 4-year-old son Jack from the waters.

The toll may have been worse had firefighters and police officers not been at the 1000 block of Washington Crossing Road as the catastrophe unfolded. Authorities said Wednesday that the utility pole and transformer that had had been reported struck by lighting, the call that brought them out to the scene, could not be located.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Fatal flooding in Upper Makefield unfolded in just a few short hours