Family Thought They Could Handle Flood, Got Swept Away

A couple miraculously survived after being swept away by rushing floodwaters in Texas over the weekend, but their 4-year-old son did not. According to the Johnson County Sheriff's Office, a 911 call came in around 2am local time on Sunday to report a vehicle with three people inside, stuck in floodwaters near Burleson, per NBC 5. The witness who made the call said the man, woman, and young child managed to escape their vehicle and attempted to get to dry land, but instead got swept away by the floodwaters. First responders rushed to the scene, and at about 5am, the man and woman were retrieved, alive, and taken to a local hospital, per the Johnson County Office of Emergency Management.

A little more than two hours later, little Lucas Warren was also found, but he hadn't survived the ordeal, officials said. Chelsey Warren, Lucas' mother, tells NBC 5 that usually the road they were on has signs up or other barriers when there are floods, but it didn't this time. She says she'd seen another car drive through, so the family tried to do the same, to tragic ends. "My car battery died, and then the car started filling up with water, so we grabbed Lucas out of his car seat," she notes. She says she treaded water for more than an hour clinging to Lucas after the floodwaters took them, until finally he slipped away from her. "I didn't hear anything from him. I think he just went under," she says of her son, describing him as a "bright, sweet, amazing" boy.

A rep for the emergency management office notes they hadn't received any previous calls of flooding on that road, and so hadn't had time to erect warnings to motorists before the "flash flood." A GoFundMe for the Warren family had raised almost $25,000 as of Monday morning. "This is the hardest thing anyone in my family has ever been through," a person who said they were dad Aaron Warren's brother wrote on the fundraising page. CNN notes that the boy's death was the first reported fatality tied to the storms causing flooding for more than a third of Texas' counties, leading to more than 200 rescues across the state. Per the AP, the rains were set to subside in southeastern Texas on Monday, though due to high waters along certain roadways, some schools stayed closed for the day. (More flooding stories.)