Texan man who lost six family members to Harvey recounts moment they were swept away in flood

Floodwaters picked up a van and pulled it into a Houston bayou

Ric Saldivar doesn’t seem to blame his brother for the deaths of his grandchildren, and his parents.

Mr Salidvar recounted the harrowing final moments of his four grandchildren and parents in an interview with CNN. He described a lucky break for his brother Sammy, who was able to pull himself out of a van he was driving as it was caught up in dangerous floodwaters in Houston.

Sammy Saldivar had yelled at 16-year-old Devy, 14-year-old Dominic, 8-year-old Xavier, and 6-year-old Daisy to climb into the back of the van, to open the back hatch and get out. Just like with his two aging parents in the vehicle, there was no escape for the children.

“The van was just bobbing in the water, that’s how deep the water was,” Ric Saldivar said. “He could hear the kids screaming and crying, trying to get out of the van.”

Sammy Saldivar had driven to pick up the four children and his parents, and hoped to bring them to higher ground. As thousands of others around the Houston area similarly sought refuge from the unrelenting wrath of Harvey, he drove over a waterlogged bridge heading over Greens Bayou in eastern Houston, encouraged by his father to do so in spite of the apparent danger of the waters.

They made, it Ric Saldivar said, but hit a dip in the road. The currents then turned the van, and pulled it into the bayou.

“They were in the van. They were driving, and he said as soon as he got over the bridge and started making that turn, the current just lifted up the van and started pointing it towards, you know, into the water,” Virginia Saldivar, Ric Saldivar’s wife, said in a separate interview. “It just took the van.”

The van, and the bodies, have not yet been recovered

Officials in Texas have urged residents to avoid driving in flooded waterways, since it is difficult to determine how deep any given point on the road may be. The roads, too, may be in poor condition, and unseeable.

Tropical storm Harvey has killed at least 30 people since it made landfall as a hurricane late last week. The storm, and the massive deluge of rains that it has brought, have inundated the city of Houston with floods the like of which officials say they haven’t seen before. The death toll is expected to rise as floodwaters recede, and as search and rescue teams clear the area.