HPD mourns sergeant who was among 2 dozen deaths here
His wife warned him not to go. He insisted.
“I’ve got work to do,” the 34-year veteran of the Houston Police Department responded.
As torrential rains pounded the area, Sgt. Steve Perez got into his patrol car and headed to work in the earlymorning darkness. Days shy of his 61st birthday, Perez died when he drove into an underpass near the Hardy Tollway and Beltway 8 and became trapped in high water, a tearful Police Chief Art Acevedo told reporters.
“Sgt. Perez lost his life because he tried to make it happen,” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said. “He tried to get to his post. He tried to do his best to be in a position to serve the people of the city of Houston, and he died in trying. That’s the ultimate sacrifice.”
Perez is among at least two dozen people who have perished or are feared
dead in the Houston area as a result of the heavy rains and historic flooding unleashed by Tropical Storm Harvey. The victims were from Harris, Galveston and Montgomery counties. A man also died in a house fire when Harvey made landfall in Rockport.
Among those feared dead are an elderly couple and their four great-grandchildren from Pasadena who a family member says drowned when their van was overtaken by floodwaters near Greens Bayou in east Houston on Sunday afternoon.
Medical examiners are in the process of identifying victims and confirming which deaths are storm-related, while authorities continue to search for those feared dead. Local officials expect the grim discoveries of additional bodies once the floodwaters retreat and the streams, rivers and bayous go back into their banks.
Details began to emerge about some of the victims caught unexpectedly in rising floodwaters.
Police officer praised
Acevedo said Perez left home at 4 a.m. Sunday and spent more than two hours trying to get to his duty station in downtown Houston. When he could not find a path in the heavy rains, he followed department protocol and tried to report to the nearest station, in Kingwood.
When he did not arrive for roll call Monday, officers called his wife, who said she had not seen Perez since Sunday.
Searchers believed they had found Perez on Monday night but could not recover his body, a visibly moved Acevedo said Tuesday.
“We could not put more officers at risk for what we knew in our hearts would be a recovery mission,” he said, choking back tears.
Search-and-rescue crews, including a dive team, recovered Perez’s body from an underpass on Tuesday.
Acevedo called Perez “a sweet, gentle public servant.”
“His wife told me she had asked him not to go in, “the chief said. “Steve was one of the sweetest people I’ve met in this department. I’ve only been here nine months and we’ve got 6,500 employees, and I know who Steve Perez was, because he was a sweet, gentle public servant.
“His father-in-law, who’s a Korean War veteran from the Army, combat veteran, told him not to go because the conditions were so bad. His response was, ‘I’ve got work to do.’ And here’s a man who didn’t spend 20 minutes and say, ‘Hey, I tried.’ He spent close to 2.5 hours because he has that in his DNA.”
Perez is survived by his wife, Cheryl, and his adult son and daughter.
The police officer’s union, as well as other police agencies, mourned his death. “We have lost one of our own to this flood,” the Houston Police Officers Union said in a post to Twitter. Four students
Pasadena High School junior Roman Rodriguez said he can’t stop thinking about his last conversations with Devy Saldivar, or her love of the color yellow.
“It’s like bright and happy, and that’s how I would describe her,” Rodriguez said.
Devy, 16, her three siblings and great-grandparents are feared dead after a relative says the van they were traveling in Sunday afternoon was overtaken by floodwaters. Their bodies had not been found as of Tuesday night.
“Pasadena ISD’s heart is heavy as we have learned that four Pasadena ISD students and two of their great-grand parents were swept away by the floodwaters of Greens Bayou while trying to escape the floodwaters of Harvey,” the district said in a Facebook post. The children, ages 6 to 16, attended Pasadena High School and Williams Elementary.
Ric Saldivar said his brother, Sammy, was driving his parents and four of Sammy’s grandchildren to Ric’s house in east Houston, where the flooding was less severe. Saldivar said his brother made it through one patch of watery road Sunday afternoon before trying to drive through a deeper pool of water on Green River Drive at Greens Bayou, on the edge of the city limits. Saldivar said the last phone call from his brother came about 11 a.m.
Ric Saldivar said his brother was able to slide out through the open driver’s side window but could not open the rear hatch to reach the children or his parents.
A spokesman for the Harris County Sheriff ’s Office confirmed Monday that deputies pulled a man from the floodwaters at that location early Sunday afternoon.
Rodriguez said he’d known Devy since their freshman year but that they’d grown closer over the past year.
School for them started about a week ago, and he remembers seeing Devy during the first couple of days of school.
Devy’s Facebook page was filled with shared memories and heartbreak from friends and family members.
“We’d always talk about our lives and what we would do after high school was over,” one young woman wrote. “I’d come crying to you and end up feeling a million times better after our talks.”
“We didn’t talk much in high school, but we did at queens,” another young woman wrote. “I can’t get the image out of my head seeing you in the halls you would always see you laughing & happy as ever !”
But the most difficult post read was the last one Devy wrote herself, at 5:28 a.m. Sunday.
“No sleep & anxiety,” she wrote. “please let this pass sooner.”
From China to South Houston
Alexander Sung was a hardworking craftsman who emigrated from China, opened a business in South Houston and then built a multicultural family with a wife and three daughters.
The jewelry maker and timepiece repairman was found dead Sunday in his workshop and retail space on College Avenue near Hobby Airport. He was the first storm-related death confirmed by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences.
Sung, 64, was discovered face down in more than a foot of debris after floodwaters entered Accu Tyme, where he went to ride out the hurricane.
He opened his business three decades ago, around the time Herlinda Cordova founded Cherry Top Bakery next door. Sung became friends with her relatives and was the best man at the wedding of Cordova’s sister, Hazel Waters.
Friends were shocked to learn he died in the shopping center.
“We were heartbroken,” Waters said. “Alex could pretty much do anything you need . ... Everybody liked him. He was just a nice guy.”
As the business changed, Sung shifted from watch and jewelry sales to mostly timepiece repairs and grandfather-clock restorations.
Liana Contreras, 26, explained how she was embraced as a child by the only father she’s ever known. She came to the U.S. several years after her mother immigrated from Honduras and married Sung. Her father “made it a priority” to travel to Central America to visit his new daughter several times and was instrumental in her smooth transition to America.
“He was wonderful. He introduced me to the computer, hamburgers, pizza. I didn’t know English. He was so patient with me because I would get so frustrated in my classes at school,” she said. “He was always there for me.”
She also appreciated how he encouraged the family to meld their customs and beliefs. Sung, a Chinese Buddhist, married into a family of Hispanic Christians.
Sung would always ride out storms at the shop to protect his inventory and because the business had never flooded. This time, it did.
His family last spoke to him before daybreak Sunday as the rising water trapped him. They said they called authorities to help him, but that assistance never came. An employee with a key walked to the shop and discovered Sung’s body on Sunday afternoon, surrounded by his clocks.
“That’s what he loved to do, and he died doing that,” Contreras said.
Sung is survived by his wife, Maria, as well as Contreras and two other daughters, Alicia and Alejandra.
Other storm-related deaths
In addition to Perez and Sung, the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences late Tuesday confirmed three additional storm-related deaths. All were accidental drownings.
The body of Agnes Stanley, 89, was found in 4 feet of water in her one-story brick home in the 4300 block of Meyerwood. The house is inside the southwest edge of the 610 Loop near Stella Link. She died around 10:30 a.m. Sunday.
Travis Lynn Callihan, 45, was pronounced dead at Memorial Hermann Memorial City Hospital around 3 p.m. Monday. He perished after exiting a vehicle and falling into floodwaters
A 76-year-old woman, whose name has not been released, was confirmed as the individual previously reported dead on Saturday evening. She was found floating in floodwaters after apparently driving into high water and getting out of her vehicle near Buffalo Bayou.
The institute also is investigating eight more deaths as storm-related, and that number is expected to rise as floodwaters drain.
In Galveston County, officials said at least six people had died in flooding.
“There’s more deaths than that,” said John Florence, chief investigator with the Galveston County medical examiner’s office. “But we don’t know if they’re storm related.”
An elderly woman died in her Santa Fe home on Saturday after her oxygen tank failed when the electricity went out, according to Florence. Crews recovered her body Sunday morning.
At least five other people were reported dead Sunday and Monday in Dickinson and League City, but additional details were not immediately available. One man was found dead Sunday in a Walmart parking lot in LaMarque, but it’s not clear how he died or if it was storm-related.
In Montgomery County, a Porter woman was killed when a tree — loosened by saturated ground — crashed onto her mobile home. The Montgomery County Sheriff ’s Office identified the victim as Lisa Jones, 60, of Porter. Authorities said Jones was asleep in the bedroom when the tree fell.
A man in his 60s died Monday after walking into floodwaters near Spring Park Ridge and the Grand Parkway in Spring, according to the South Montgomery County Fire Department. Passersby spotted the man enter the water and go into distress at about 11:30 p.m. but were unable to help him before he went under. Rescuers also were unable to save the man, whose identity was not yet known.
In the Friendswood area, Clear Creek ISD in Galveston County confirmed on Facebook on Tuesday that former Clear Creek High School track and football coach Ruben Jordan died. Family members told KHOU-TV that Jordan perished in the floods.
“Our family would like to extend our sincere appreciation and thanks for the effort, support and prayers we received while trying to locate him,” his family wrote.