Storm victim planned to care for patients

Mother swept away by floodwaters while en route to work site

Keisha Williams planned to ride out the storm taking care of her beloved nursing home patients, a job that helped provide for her two daughters.

The 32-year-old nurse took her girls to a relative who lives in a second-floor apartment off Interstate 45 the night of Aug. 26.

“She said she would be at work,” said Jolié Tillman, the children’s paternal aunt. “That’s the last time I talked to her.”

Roads flooded by Tropical Storm Harvey blocked her path to work at Jacinto City Healthcare Center in east Harris County. She ended up at a friend’s house near her east Houston complex, the Woodforest Chase apartments, which already had high water from Greens Bayou in its parking lot.

By Aug. 28, the rain slacked up. The water receded and the path home seemed passable.

“She went back to her apartment to get the school clothes she’d just bought the girls and to get their dogs,” Tillman said. “She was a dog parent. She loved her pets.”

Caught in current

But the floodwaters rose quickly and Williams got caught in a strong current outside — a drowning Tillman had watched Facebook footage of early last week, not realizing it was Williams. “I didn’t think that it looked like Keisha’s apartment because I knew where she was. I knew the kids were safe. I knew she was safe at work, or at least I thought,” she said.

Tillman was recovering from her own weekend evacuation fiasco that included wading through floodwater. She was admittedly grumpy when one of her sisters awoke her on the afternoon of Aug. 29 with a telephone call. “What?” she snapped. Her sister told her that Williams may have drowned. Tillman hung up and started dialing her former sister-in-law. Straight to voicemail. She sent several texts. No response.

Then, Tillman called the niece who had the girls. She also said that there may have been a drowning and sent her the video.

“It’s the same video that I watched,” she said, noting that Williams was particularly “mortified” about deep water.

The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences recovered Williams on the morning of Aug. 30 in the 12400 block of Woodforest Boulevard.

“When the water started to recede, her body was on the gate,” Tillman said. “Imagine a gate that surrounds an apartment complex. That’s how high the water was over there.”

Keisha Monique Williams was a lifelong Houstonian who graduated from Furr High School, according to her grandmother, Marie Williams.

“It’s really hit me pretty hard,” the family matriarch said. She lost Keisha’s mother, Ethel Williams, to illness in 2012 and will miss spending time with her granddaughter.

“She’d come and visit all the time,” the 74-year-old said. “We’d go to dinner after church. I’m going to miss her.”

‘She just worked so hard’

Keisha Williams chose nursing because the vocation allowed her to help people. Over her career, she cared for the aged and developmentally disabled individuals.

She worked her way up from a certified nursing assistant to a licensed vocational nurse and a team leader at work. Her next goal was to become a registered nurse.

“While she worked a full-time job, probably 50 to 60 hours a week, she was a single parent who went to school and did other activities with her children,” Tillman said. “She just worked so hard. It was important for her to do that to show her girls how important it is to work and have a strong work ethic.”

Relatives organized a balloon release honoring Williams to comfort her daughters — Kiaja Elkins, 13, and 10-year-old Kinaya Elkins.

The nurse and devoted mother would have turned 33 on Sept. 2.

Williams talked about celebrating this year by splurging on dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steak House. Tillman plans to take Kiaja and Kinaya to eat there instead.

A few days ago, the girls learned that their dogs, Tiger and Doughboy, survived the storm.

A funeral for Williams is planned for 11 a.m. Saturday at Pleasant Green Missionary Baptist Church, 10912 Wallisville, in Houston.