Teen Dies After Getting Caught In Storm Drain Amid Floods

A 13-year-old boy died Thursday after being swept into a storm drain by flash flooding in Mount Airy, Maryland, during a powerful storm that battered the East Coast, police said.

Mount Airy police said the teen was pulled under around 5:20 p.m. near an apartment complex “during the height of the storm,” according to The Washington Post. (RELATED: Several Celebrities Come Out To Lend Their Support To Texas Disaster Relief Efforts)

Two workers from the municipal drainage company open a sewer on a flooded street in Hanoi on July 17, 2017, after tropical storm Talas made landfall in northern Vietnam. (Photo by HOANG DINH NAM/AFP via Getty Images)

Mount Airy saw roughly four inches of rain Thursday afternoon, among the highest levels in the region, the Post reported. The boy had been playing with other children when he was swept into a drainage pipe, according to WBAL News.

Emergency crews from local police, fire and sheriff’s departments “worked tirelessly in an attempt to rescue” the boy, Mount Airy Police Chief Michael Ginevra said, according to the Post. “Despite their heroic efforts, the operation transitioned from a rescue to a recovery.”

The boy was eventually pulled from the drain but did not survive, police said.

The department’s Facebook page was flooded with condolences. One commenter, Holly Michaelson McGrath, said she had driven through the area shortly before the emergency response and called the flooding “awful.”

Elsewhere in the region, flash foods have overwhelmed roads. In Montgomery County, rescuers saved an 8-year-old boy standing atop a submerged car where a woman and a toddler were trapped, the Post reported.