TRAGIC TEEN’S FEARS
Six lost in one family
A teen wrote of her fears about Tropical Storm Harvey on Facebook — hours before floodwaters swept her away along with five relatives, who are all presumed dead.
“No sleep & anxiety, please let this pass sooner,” 16-year-old Devy Saldivar wrote about 5:30 a.m. Sunday.
Later that morning, her great-uncle, Sammy, was trying to drive them to safety when floodwaters engulfed their van near the Greens Bayou, relatives told NBC News.
“The water picked the van up, and it was just floating after that,” Uncle Ric Saldivar told ABC 13. “It went headfirst in, and water came in real fast.”
Sammy unbuckled his seat belt and pulled himself out a half-open window, yelling at the others to get out as he grabbed a tree branch.
“He called it a twig,” Ric said. “A 2-inch little branch.” But it was too late. “That keeps playing in his head,” Ric said, holding back tears.
“Sam calls my husband and tells him, ‘They’re gone,’ ” the children’s grandmother, Virginia Saldivar, told the AP. “That’s when my husband dropped the phone and started screaming.”
Devy, Daisy, 6, Xavier, 8, and Dominic, 14, are presumed to have died along with their great-grandparents, Manuel Saldivar, 84, and his wife, Belia, 81, authorities said.
“My brother-in-law saw the van go under the water,” Virginia said. “We are devastated.”
The Harris County Sheriff ’s Office said it could not confirm the fate of the missing family.
The children’s mother went out in a boat in a desperate attempt to locate the van.
“She’s a mom — she just wants to find her kids,” said Esmeralda Saldivar, the children’s aunt, NBC News reported.
“It’s so unfair,” she said, breaking down in tears. “They were good kids. They didn’t deserve to die this way.”
Virginia Saldivar mourned “the sweetest kids.”
“Devy loved animals, Starbucks, and thrift-store shopping. She was my sunflower, my sunshine. Xavier was the sweetest boy. He loved anything Army and playing video games,” she told NBC News in a statement.
“Daisy was our princess. She was Grandpa’s girl. She loved kittens and dressing up, and watching YouTube videos,” she said.
“Dominic was my heart. He was the most amazing, loving boy. He loved playing his trombone, watching YouTube and playing video games. He loved his family and he would defend them against anything,” she said.
Speaking from a relative’s home in Humble, Texas, Virginia said she and her family will look for the bodies themselves once they can return.
“Finding my babies,” she said, “that’s my ultimate goal.”