DOUGLASS TOWSHIP, PA -- A 31-year-old pregnant Douglass Township woman and her 9-year-old son drowned when their car was swept away by floodwaters near the hamlet of Pine Forge.
The car was carried downstream during a deluge Thursday afternoon from the confluence of the Ironstone and Manatawny creeks in Douglass Township, a spot that received several inches of rain within two hours.
The bodies of Pamela V. Snyder and her son Preston Dray were found inside their car along the embankment on the north side of the Manatawny, about a half-mile from their last known position in the 100 block of Pine Forge Road, township Police Chief John Dzurek said.
Snyder's fiance, Josh Knarr, who lived with Snyder, told the Reading Eagle that a baby shower had been planned for Sunday. Snyder was eight months pregnant, he said, and the couple were to name their newborn daughter Evelynn Rose.
The car, which had been submerged Thursday night in the raging water, remained in the creek through Friday morning, when the water level had dropped below the chassis.
Officials were coordinating efforts with a towing contractor and water recovery units to remove the car from the creek. Crews were still working to remove the car Friday evening.
Snyder and Dray were pronounced dead at the scene at 11:38 p.m. Thursday by Berks County Deputy Coroner Sarah Shivers. Chief Deputy Coroner Jonn M. Hollenbach said Friday that autopsies will not be performed because all evidence indicates they drowned.
“The car was witnessed being swept away,” Hollenbach said.
Knarr and the family had no further comment Friday.
How it happened
Emergency services personnel gave a detailed account of the rescue attempt and the subsequent recovery.
About 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Snyder called 9-1-1 because her car was stalled in several feet of floodwater on Pine Forge Road.
She told call-takers that she was eight months pregnant and was in the car with her 9-year-old son, and that water was rushing in.
Snyder, who was less than 2 miles from home, couldn't give a precise location, Dzurek said Friday, but she narrowed it down to the short stretch between Summit Lane and Grist Mill Road.
When a signal was sent to her phone, it pinged to the Colebrookdale Railroad overpass on Pine Forge, close to the span that carries Manatawny Drive over the Manatawny Creek, just off Pine Forge Road.
Dzurek, who was one of two officers on duty at the time in Douglass, made his way to Pine Forge Road to try to locate the stranded car. Dzurek said the flooding in the area was so bad that he never got close enough to see her vehicle, and to determine if it was on the Pine Forge Road side of the span or the Grist Mill Road side. The car was later swept into the Manatawny.
Dzurek had stopped his truck at the Pine Forge intersection with Summit Lane.
“I couldn't even confirm the bridge was still there and if I would have attempted to go through in my SUV, the water would have been clearly over the top of my truck,” he told reporters Friday outside the township building.
“When I was driving through the waters myself, I could feel my SUV, which sits pretty high, wanting to drift away," Dzurek had said late Thursday night. "I was able to get off a little dirt lane, look down and I couldn't see anything, got spun around and tore back through before I became part of it."
Dzurek said he relayed a message that fire services and a water rescue was needed to access the stranded vehicle, but the numerous flooded roadways and the continuing deluge made it difficult for emergency crews to even get there.
A firefighter who was put in contact with Snyder was able to stay on the phone with her for several minutes before losing contact, Dzurek said, with numerous attempts made to reconnect with her.
Dzurek said the last thing she told the firemen was that the nose of the car was starting to go into the water.
Dive teams and rescue boats from Boyertown, Phoenixville and as far away as Schuylkill County were sent to the scene Thursday. A staging area was set up at the bridge over the Manatawny.
Reading Search and Rescue brought its drone team to conduct an aerial search of the creek, and the state police were flying a helicopter in the area in an attempt to locate the missing car.
The grim turn
Their mission soon shifted to one of recovering the bodies.
Snyder family members began arriving at the scene around 8 p.m., gathering on the bridge and looking into the floodwaters that were still raging underneath. The rain had stopped hours earlier.
Around 9:45 p.m., a search party in a boat located the missing car about a quarter-mile north of the staging area on the bridge. Crews were able to see through a sunroof and found the bodies of the mother and son inside as the Manatawny Creek began to subside.
More loved ones began arriving, embracing one another and crying on the bridge.
Boyertown-based Keystone Rescue and other recovery units were tasked with bringing the bodies to shore.
Volunteers ferried the bodies by boat to the steep, brush-covered shore line. There, they placed the bodies on rescue stretchers that were hoisted up a steep embankment.
Dzurek praised his fellow first responders, many of them volunteers.
“Everybody kept everyone abreast of what was going on and what the next step was going to be,” he said.
Overwhelming rain
Dzurek, who has been with the Douglass police for more than a decade, said Thursday's flooding of creeks and roadways was the worst local natural disaster he's ever seen on the job, especially since it led to multiple fatalities.
"In the 14-going-on-15-years I've been with the department, I've never seen rain fall that quickly and cause as much destruction in this area as it did today," Dzurek said.
He said he received a report from the township's road master that more than 6 inches of rain had fallen by 4 p.m.
“I use the word ‘stressful' because Officer (Micah) Long and I were the only two on to begin with, and the township was falling apart,” the chief said. “Cars in water here, cars in water there, trees down here, people stuck between two areas of flooding and can't go anywhere."
Helping the helpers
Lt. Joseph Smith and his wife, Rebecca, of the Salvation Army of Boyertown, estimated there were more than 80 first responders — medics, firefighters, police officers and others — staged in the area to help.
Working in warm, humid conditions Friday, they needed food and beverages, so the Salvation Army brought out its canteen unit.
The Smiths had the dual mission of comforting members of the family.
“I was able to speak with a couple members of the family and we were able to pray with some of them to officer support — emotional and spiritual support — during this unfortunate tragedy," Smith said Friday.
He added: “I was just glad we were able to be there and support them in any way possible. Those types of scenes are very, very difficult. There's really nothing you can say.”
(Reporters Holly Herman and Karen Shuey contributed to this story).
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