‘TRULY DEVASTATING’: Texas Mother Breaks Down Recalling the Terrifying Moment Her Two Sons Were Swept Away by Floodwaters — and the Miracle That Saved Them
The sky turned black in seconds.
The sirens had just started to scream.
And in a flash, the street outside became a river — raging, merciless, and hungry.
That’s how Amanda Reyes, a mother of two from central Texas, remembers the moment her world changed forever.
“I was holding their hands,” she says, barely able to speak through the tears. “And then the current took them.”
It happened last Sunday during the catastrophic floods that devastated dozens of counties across the state. Amanda and her two sons, Gabriel (9) and Mateo (6), had been evacuating their neighborhood when a sudden surge of floodwater breached a storm drain and turned the intersection into a whirlpool. In mere seconds, her grip was broken.
“They were screaming my name,” she sobbed. “I thought I lost them forever.”
For what felt like an eternity, Amanda searched, screaming through the rising waters and pounding rain. Rescuers later said that area of the street had turned into a 6-foot-deep flood zone in under three minutes.
But just when all hope seemed lost, the impossible happened.
Two local construction workers — brothers who had been assisting neighbors on higher ground — heard her cries and sprinted into the current without hesitation. Wading waist-deep and using a fallen fence post for balance, they spotted the boys clinging to a submerged shopping cart lodged near a power pole.
“They were barely holding on,” said Marco Ledesma, one of the rescuers. “Another 30 seconds and the current would’ve taken them for good.”
The brothers pulled both boys to safety, wrapping them in their jackets and rushing them uphill to waiting medics. Miraculously, aside from bruises and hypothermia, both children survived.
The family was reunited at a local shelter hours later. That moment — caught on video by a volunteer — shows Amanda collapsing to her knees, holding her sons against her chest, repeating through sobs: “You’re safe. You’re safe. You’re safe.”
The video has since gone viral, becoming a symbol of hope and resilience in the face of unimaginable tragedy.
“There are no words,” Amanda said later. “Just… thank you. To the men who saved my babies — you didn’t just rescue them. You rescued me.”
As recovery efforts continue across the region, her story is one of the few miracles to emerge from the devastation — a reminder that even in the darkest moments, light still breaks through.