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Crews in Pennsylvania are still searching for two children who were swept away over the weekend by turbulent floodwaters that killed their mother as a violent storm slammed the region.
Matilda “Mattie” Sheils, 2, and her 9-month-old brother, Conrad Sheils, vanished after intense flooding engulfed parts of southeast Pennsylvania on Saturday evening.
The body of their mother, 32-year-old Katie Seley, was found late Saturday.
The crews have searched the entire flood zone, which is about 1.5 miles long, more than a dozen times and they are continuing to search above and below water, Upper Makefield Fire Company Chief Tim Brewer said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference.
If the children are not found by the end of the day, the focus of the search “will shift from a land based and creek based to a dive rescue operation, or a search and rescue operation,” Brewer said.
“That will mean underwater assets mainly in the creek and we will work out from there,” Brewer said, adding the crews will still have canine units as part of the search, but those assets will begin to “scale down” from tomorrow.
