Yahoo News Looters stole from flooded Houston home while victim, 89, lay floating inside
Looters broke into a flooded Houston home last week while the body of an elderly flood victim was still floating inside the property.
The house was among four broken into on one street during looting in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in the US.
The Houston Police Department confirmed the four homes were robbed during the deadly storm, with Agnes Stanley, 89, still inside her house at the time of the alleged break in.
Ms Stanley had insisted on riding the storm out in her home, said her neighbour and trained paramedic Michel Poche.
“She had great difficulty getting around”, said Poche.
“She was not ambulatory, neighbours brought her paper every day, brought her coffee, we all kind of pitched in to take care of her”.
Poche said that once she knew her family was safe, she set out to “take care of everyone else”, starting with Ms Stanley.
After her calling her son on the morning of August 27th to get permission to break into the home and check on her, she entered to find her neighbour’s body.
“We saw that she was under the water and we backed out and called 911”, Poche said.
“We think that the water got too high and she may have drowned”.
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Poche also confirmed that the house had been robbed.
“She was still in there”, she said. “The coroner was not able to get in until Thursday to pick her body up. Yeah, they broke into her house and stole stuff, too”.
Officials now say at least 60 people were killed as a result of Harvey, with the majority drowned in quickly rising floodwaters.
