Houston: In the photo, little Aiden Pham — 13 months old and swaddled in a blanket — nestles asleep in his mother’s arms, even as floodwaters from Hurricane Harvey surge around them.
Someday, no doubt, Aiden’s mother will tell him about the day Houston police rescued them from their flooded home by boat, and about how one officer lifted them to safety. But thanks to the careful eye of a veteran photographer assigned to cover the storm, the world already knows the mother, child and officer as the faces of the struggle to deal with the devastation.
“I was just keeping an eye out and as soon as I saw the SWAT team member carrying her and then seeing the baby, I just couldn’t believe that baby was wrapped up in there and not crying,” photographer David Phillip said of the moment Sunday afternoon when his lens found the trio. “It was just tender. It was very special.”
Phillip’s photo shows officer Daryl Hudeck, in baseball cap and fatigues, carrying Catherine Pham and the son she cradled through knee-deep water covering Interstate 610, in southwest Houston.
Phillip said the woman and child were rescued along with the baby’s father from their home in the city’s Meyerland section, where water reached many roofs.
By Monday, the image had quickly become a symbol of the storm and rescue efforts, featured across the web and many front pages.
The Phams, carried to a police staging point at a high spot in the road, were quickly whisked away Sunday, giving Phillip just a minute or two to get their names and witness their relief.
“House is completely flooded, but at least we are all together,” Catherine Pham posted on her Facebook page late Sunday. “We are so thankful that God was looking over us today!”
Soon after the Phams were rescued, Phillip said, he broke away to transmit the photos. It’s a good thing, too. Not long after, a boat he was on hit an object underwater, probably a submerged car, and the photographer was pitched backward into the water. His leg was scraped by the boat’s outboard motor before fire department rescuers could pull him on board. One of his cameras and all the images it contained were lost.
Phillip, who is 51 and has been a photographer for the AP for 22 years, all based in Houston, has covered many hurricanes. But Katrina, Ike and Rita could not prepare him for the one that has swamped his home city.
During Katrina, “I did see a lot of disturbing things, you know, dogs eating bodies and that sort of thing,” he said. “But having this in your home, it’s just kind of a sickening feeling. I just kind of think it’s a bad dream and we’ll all wake up and it will all be gone. But it isn’t going to be any time soon.”
Still, Phillip said, seeing police rescue people like Catherine and Aiden Pham has been a reminder of his city’s endurance.
“There’s moments that will always stick in your head — that one and something that happened a few hours before them, when a sheriff’s deputy had to go and rescue a guy from a flooded car,” he said. “Just the terror on the gentleman’s face who was being rescued and just how dedicated our law enforcement is, just doing what they can to save people.”
Family of 6 presumed dead after van sinks in Harvey floods
As a van full of family members tried to escape Harvey, violent floodwaters engulfed the vehicle and six people are presumed dead, including four siblings aged 6 to 16, a relative said.
Virginia Saldivar told The Associated Press on Monday that when her in-laws’ northeast Houston home began to flood early Sunday, her brother-in-law Samuel Saldivar borrowed her husband’s van and drove to pick up the relatives. She said at some point on their way to safety, a strong current lifted the van and pitched it forward into Greens Bayou.
Samuel Saldivar climbed out of the driver-side window but the van’s sliding door was partially submerged and would not open, Virginia Saldivar said. He yelled at the children to try to escape out the back, but they were unable. Virginia Saldivar said her brother-in-law could only watch as the van disappeared under water.
“Sam calls my husband and tells him, ‘they’re gone,’” Saldivar told AP. “That’s when my husband dropped the phone and started screaming.”
Virginia Saldivar believes her husband’s parents, 84-year-old Manuel Saldivar and Belia Saldivar, 81, drowned along with their grandchildren Daisy, Xavier, Dominic and Devy.
Virginia Saldivar said she lives in the same neighbourhood as her relatives, but she and her husband left during a calm spell Saturday to watch the Mayweather-McGregor boxing match. The children’s mother had left the four at home, she said. The widespread flooding prevented them from getting home until Sunday afternoon.
She said the Coast Guard told her family they couldn’t search for the bodies until the water recedes. Saldivar said she has not yet told the children’s father, her son, who she says is in prison for violating parole.
A spokesman for Houston’s Office for Emergency Management was unable to confirm the presumed deaths, first reported by KHOU-TV.
Nasa’s Johnson Space Centre closed amid floods
Nasa’s Johnson Space Centre (JSC) in Houston, Texas, remained closed due to floods caused by the catastrophic hurricane Harvey, according to the space agency.
But the Mission Control continued operations, the agency announced on Monday.
“While the vast majority of our workforce is safe, many have experienced severe flood damage, are without power and may need other assistance,” JSC Director Ellen Ochoa, a former astronaut, said.
The JSC in Houston has been closed to all non-critical staff from Sunday and will remain closed on Tuesday. The JSC Emergency Management said: “Centre Closure Includes all Sites.”
However, the Mission Control Centre is “operational and fully capable of supporting the International Space Station (ISS) from Houston”, according to Nasa.
“Oh boy — looks like a tonne of rain is about to unload. Here’s a prayer for family, friends & everyone in Hurricane Harvey’s path ... stay safe,” astronaut Jack Fischer, who is currently in the ISS, posted photos of the storm when he orbited over the hurricane.
Later, the ISS account shared pictures Fischer photographed from the station’s six-sided observation dome.
“Wish I was up there and not down here,” said JSC Director Ochoa who retweeted the images.
