Rescue Crews Risked Their Lives In Palestine
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PALESTINE (CBS11) - New images show the daring rescues in Palestine, Texas as flood waters rapidly rose early Saturday.
Six people lost their lives, but many more were saved by first responders who risked everything.
A Palestine neighborhood was underwater when the floods rushed in - nearly 8 inches in 45 minutes.
Many lost everything.
For Lillie Stephen and others, the water was up to their roofs.
"We had water above the roof, touching the shingles in some areas and touching the eaves on other houses," says J.P. Manley, a driver and paramedic with the Palestine Fire Department.
Stephens can tell the rest. She and her dog, B.J. were just about to go to bed.
"Just as I put one foot up, he started barking. A real deep, serious bark," she says, "When I step off my bed, I step in water."
She ran to the front door. It was sealed shut.
"Just about time I stepped to the side, the monster came in. The door. The door went off like a big shotgun. Boom!" she says. "It was the devil. It was the devil. He came to get me, but you know what? God overpowered him."
First responders J.P. Manley and Clay Sterling - who had a camera strapped to his helmet - were among those who saved her and more than 20 others. They had no life jackets or ropes for the first 30 minutes.
They used the top of a runaway cooler as a flotation device. The water was up to the ceiling when they grabbed Stephens - with B.J. on her shoulder.
"I said, 'I can't swim.'" she says. "He said, 'It's alright. Just kick your feet and breathe.'"
Others were rescued from their roofs or floating in their couches.
"Hearing people crying out for help and everything, the adrenaline kicked in, and we just went," says firefighter Clay Sterling.
But for everyone, the gratitude is coupled with grief for neighbor Lenda Asberry and her four great-grandchildren, who died in their home.
"The wrath of death was on our street that night," says Stephens. "It was going to claim somebody. I think it came to claim me, but I got too many things to do."
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