Social Media Posts Plead For Help Finding Missing Family Members In Harvey’s Wake

Photos with pleas for help in finding the missing from Tropical Storm Harvey are being posted, cut-and-pasted and retweeted by thousands of people as desperate family members seek loved ones who they fear might be dead, but may only have a dead phone. No official number of the unaccounted-for had been released Tuesday night amid the vast uncertainty of the storm’s fourth day, with authorities saying the 18 deaths confirmed so far could surge in the days to come. Pictures and pleas for dozens of toddlers, brothers and grandfathers are circulating on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. The posts appeared to be getting results, though not always good news. “Pleaseeeee,” read the Instagram posting seeking 8-month-old Paige Booth, showing the baby sitting on a couch with a pacifier. Her mother and grandmother were evacuating from their Houston home Monday and holding her above their heads as the water rose to their chests and a current pushed them along. “It was raining bad, and the water was high,” the mother, Bajauh Henix, said. They handed the baby off to a police officer on a personal watercraft, who took the infant to higher ground and handed her to a family member in a black pick-up truck, said Kennesha Grand, the girl’s grandmother. But when Grand and Henix reached the area where the child was supposed to be, no one there knew her whereabouts. Once they reached a shelter, they posted photos of the baby on Instagram and elsewhere.