Body of 10-year-old Brenham girl swept away by swift water recovered, ending 18-hour search

BRENHAM, Texas (KBTX) - After searching for almost 18 hours, the body of 10-year-old Devah Woods was recovered around 11 a.m. Tuesday, Brenham Fire Chief Mark Donovan confirmed.

The Brenham Elementary third-grader was swept away after getting off the school bus around 4:30 p.m. Monday and walking home with her sibling. After a day of heavy rains, swift water had risen higher. Devah’s sibling was able to get to safety and got help immediately. Chief Donovan said the Brenham Fire Department received a notice of a water rescue near Burleson Street and MLK.

The search continued late into Monday night, although water search efforts had to be scaled back due to heavy thunderstorms rolling through. Those rescue efforts continued early Tuesday.

“Shortly after about 10:00 this morning, we received notification that we had found the body,” Chief Donovan said in a press conference. “At that point, this became a recovery effort and control of the scene was passed on to the Brenham Police Department.”

Search continues Tuesday for Brenham girl swept into creek by rising water following storms

At 10:45 a.m., Lieutenant Steven Tyler said the Texas Department of Public Safety’s dive team notified him that Devah Woods had been found.

“We have taken care of her as much as we could. Our hearts go out to [Veronica Williams’, Devah’s mother] family. It’s a difficult thing. We did use multiple state resources as well as local county. We had DPS’s dive team as well as multiple entities from Texas Task Force One for different search and swift water rescues during this incident.

As DPS and the Brenham Police Department continue to investigate, city officials say they’re grateful for the community response.

“We’re a very, very special community,” Mayor Attwood Kenjura said. “We’re, I think, a very tight-knit, Christian community and the response from everyone was overwhelming. [I] can’t even begin to start to thank the responders who were on the scene, and a difficult recovery of a young lady. I have a granddaughter this age and it really, it strikes [home].

Devah Woods’ mother, Veronica Williams was in attendance at the 12:30 p.m. update with the city.