Mum swept away by Texas floods made frantic last call to sister
A mother who was swept away by ferocious flood waters in Texas made a desperate final call to her sister telling her family she loved them and to pray.
"I'm in a house. I'm floating down the river, tell mom and dad I love you and pray."
That was the last telephone conversation Julie Shields had with her sister Laura McComb.
Mrs McComb and her two children, four and six, are among those missing after ferocious weather battered parts of Texas and Oklahoma on Saturday. Three people perished in the crisis and US reports suggest at least nine people are still missing.
Mrs McComb's husband Jonathan survived. He was discovered with a broken rib, sternum and a collapsed lung on a river bank by rescue crews.
"He is absolutely devastated," Mrs Shields told ABC's Good Morning America. "He did everything he possibly could to save them.
"What happened was the house slammed into a bridge and broke in two and they had all been in the house together holding hands but when the house hit the bridge and it separated, he got separated from everyone else."
The family were among a group staying at Wimberley, a river town between Austin and San Antonio over the memorial weekend, a federal holiday in the US.
"My sister and I had been texting throughout the night and she had told me around 11pm that water had started coming in," Shields told ABC News KVUE in Austin.
Three hours later, Mrs McComb called her sister for a second time to say the family were in trouble.
Emergency crews were due to resume their search for the family and others who are still missing.
"We have accepted that they're gone," she said.
Morning news break - May 27
