Still image from Hoover Police Department video
Hoover police Capt. Keith Czeskleba talks about two people killed by swift floodwater in Riverchase on Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2021 during a press conference at the Hoover Public Safety Center on Thursday, Oct. 7, 2021.
Two 23-year-olds died in a flash flooding incident in Riverchase Wednesday night after their vehicle got trapped and swept away by rising swift water from a creek, Hoover police said Thursday.
The incident happened in the 1100 block of Riverchase Parkway West, Hoover police Capt. Keith Czeskleba said.
Hoover police and fire officials initially responded to a call of a vehicle trapped in rising floodwater on Riverchase Parkway West near Fox Creek Circle about 8:30 p.m., Czeskleba said. The occupant of that vehicle was rescued, and the Fire Department crew left to respond to other rescue calls while a Hoover police officer remained to block the road on the east side of Riverchase Parkway West, he said.
Within 10 minutes, a second vehicle entered the flooded area from the opposite side of the roadblock and was immediately disabled due to the flood, Czeskleba said.
“The vehicle began floating down the roadway and became pinned against the guardrail and trapping the occupants,” he said. “Fire crews returned to the scene but were unable to access the occupants due to the swift water and the location of the vehicle. The water lifted the vehicle over the guardrail and out of sight of first responders.”
Hoover police and fire crews worked throughout the night trying to locate the vehicle and the people in it, and at 9 a.m. found the vehicle submerged in the water about 75 to 100 yeards from where it went in the water, Czeskleba said. Both bodies were still inside the vehicle, he said.
Shelby County Coroner Lina Evans identified the victims as Myles Jared Butler and Latin Marie Hill, both 23 years old and living in Riverchase. They were boyfriend and girlfriend, Evans said.
Czeskleba said “it’s very heartbreaking for our first responders to respond there and to try to do everything you can to save those people and then ultimately not be able to.”
He spoke with residents who have lived in that area a long time, and they had never seen water go over that bridge, so the flooding in that particular area was unprecedented, he said.
Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato, who spent 42 years with the Hoover Fire Department before he became mayor in 2016, said he has never seen flooding like that in Hoover.
“It’s just the amount of rain that was generated that fell yesterday,” Brocato said. “There’s no system designed out there that I know of that can address that.”
A map from the National Weather Service shows nearly 7 inches of rain in some parts of Shelby County in the 24-hour period ending at 7 a.m. Thursday.
The mayor said Hoover officials quite often have to deal with drainage issues, like probably every other government entity.
“The facts are that most of the time, it is not the city’s responsibility or the government entity’s responsibility, so we try to work within the framework of the law to address any type of drainage issue that occurs in our city, and that’s what we’ll continue to do.”
Brocato asked the public to remember the two people killed by the floodwater, “but particularly remember their families as they deal with the tragic loss of these two individuals.”
Czeskleba said the Hoover police and fire departments were inundated with rescue calls due to flooding Wednesday night, including areas such as Riverchase and Trace Crossings and along U.S. 31.
Other nearby cities experienced flooding problems Wednesday night as well, including Pelham and Birmingham.
Hoover recently had an engineering study done to examine recurring flooding problems in the Green Valley community and expects to release the results of that study soon, City Administrator Allan Rice said.
Flooding has been a problem this year in numerous cities, including Vestavia Hills and Homewood.
