Mom and daughter dead, baby missing after Pennsylvania flood sweeps SC family, cops say
UPDATE: On July 22, Pennsylvania police said one of the missing South Carolina children — 2-year-old Matilda “Mattie” Sheils — was found dead. The search continues for her baby brother, Conrad Sheils.
The original story is below.
A South Carolina mom is dead and two of her children are missing after flooding swept away their family in Pennsylvania, officials said.
The kids — both younger than 3 years old — vanished as their mother and grandmother tried to save them from the “raging” floodwaters, according to the Upper Makefield Township Police Department in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
The children’s mother was among five people dead after the area saw up to 7 inches of rain in 45 minutes on Saturday, July 15, WHYY reported. A video police shared on Facebook shows a deluge of water rushing over a guardrail.
Police in Facebook posts said the mother was part of a family heading to a gathering during a visit from Charleston, South Carolina. The relatives were on a road about 35 miles northeast of Philadelphia when a “torrential rainstorm” hit the area, leaving their vehicles “caught in the flash flood,” officers wrote.
“Dad, miraculously, was able to get himself and their 4 year-old son to safety, but the mother and grandmother who were trying to get their 2 other children, ages 9 months and 2 years to safety, were all swept away by the raging (floodwaters),” police wrote. “Unbelievably, the grandmother survived and was treated at a local hospital.”
But the children’s mom disappeared before first responders found her body. She was identified in a Facebook post as 32-year-old Katie Seley.
The other four people who died were identified as:
- 78-year-old Enzo Depiero of Newtown Township
- 53-year-old Susan Barnhart of Titusville, New Jersey
- 64-year-old Yuko Love of Newtown Township
- 74-year-old Linda Depiero of Newtown Township
As of early July 18, the search continued for Seley’s missing 2-year-old daughter — Matilda “Mattie” Sheils — and baby son, Conrad Sheils. Officers said boats, drones and sonar technology were among the tools being used to look for them along the Delaware River.
“We are all in grieving over the loss of life we have seen,” officers wrote in a July 16 post on Facebook. “However, our commitment to finding the two children who are still missing is unwavering as we will do all that we can to bring them home to their loved ones.”
This story was originally published July 17, 2023 at 11:38 AM with the headline "Mom and daughter dead, baby missing after Pennsylvania flood sweeps SC family, cops say."
