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Grandmother, four children dead in Texas flash flood

By Daniel Uria

PALESTINE, Texas, April 30 (UPI) -- A 64-year-old woman and her four grandchildren between ages 6 and 9 were killed in flash flooding in a Texas neighborhood on Saturday.

Palestine Police department said residents reported finding the bodies of two dead children in the front yard and later searched the woman's home and discovered three more bodies. The victims included the grandmother and the four children, ages 9, 8, 7, and 6.

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"The water just came up extremely fast," Palestine Police Chief James Muniz told NBC News. "Before they knew it, water was waist high, then chest high and then it was roof line."

Police received calls about flooding and fast moving water as well as about the missing family, whose name's were not released, beginning at around 12:15 a.m.

"We started to get overwhelmed with calls," Muniz said. "We had fire and other city workers out looking for them and once the water receded, we found them."

Resident of nearby Pinewood street, Undra White, told the Palestine Press-Herald that the flooding was contained to the 100 block of Timber Drive.

"The water reached just under the stop sign at the intersection," White said. "I came out of my house to help and saw the firefighters doing everything they could with the equipment they had to help the people."

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Muniz said that the grandmother and her grandchildren were the only one's in the neighborhood at the time and residents had begun making their way back into their homes to collect their belongings.

"All the residences are empty right now. The people are going to go back in a see if they can salvage anything," he said.

Police said that six to eight other families on the street were displaced by the fast-moving floodwater.

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