MONTEGO BAY, St James — It was news no one wanted to hear. The body of 12-year-old Jenell Walters was recovered Tuesday evening about a mile and a half from where she and her grandmother were washed away by raging flood waters during torrential rain.

Up to late into the evening the search continued for 68-year-old Beryl Walters, relatives hoping for the best, but bracing for the worst. Among them the young girl’s grandfather Berris, and aunt Shannon, who were rescued as rushing water pushed the Toyota Succeed in which they were all travelling into a culvert on the Westgate main road.

They were saved by men who fix tyres at a gas station near the Barnett River bridge and an employee of a nearby garden supplies store.

“One heavy water come down and spin it ’round and the man dem did see what a gwaan and a come [help]. One big unit did stop over the side… and then mi come and mi stop and him drive weh and move weh. After him drive weh a heavy water come and lick the car and spin it ’round,” said Berris Walters as he relived the ordeal while awaiting news of his missing wife and granddaughter.

His daughter, 25-year-old Shannon, told the Jamaica Observer how she clung to a tree limb for dear life after the car was swept away.

“It go down into the current and then it turn over. We did wind down the window them because we did see the man dem a come fi tek we out, because we did a call them and them did have rope. But by the time them did come down towards we, a deh so the car go inna the current and start wash weh,” she said.

Shannon told the Observer she managed to fight the raging waters and make her way to a tree.

“Mi haffi swim and hold on pon one branch. The man them come fi me and take me out a di water,” she said.

Her father was found clinging to clumps of grass in the vicinity of the bridge at Westgate.

“Somebody tell mi say somebody a drown, so mi just run go out there, and when mi go out deh mi see the man hold on to a grass root,” said Clayvian Williams, an employee at the nearby Cornwall Garden Centre.

“Mi manage to take off mi shoes, pants and mi shirt, and a man throw a rope give him, and by time them pull him across him wash weh inna the deep part; is like him sink. So mi just go pon the edge and just grab him. The only thing mi coulda do a just hold him with mi back against the bank, and mi just tell them to take him out and lef’ me. So the next two man dem just pull him out and then mi come out,” Williams related.

Firefighters and other rescue crew soon converged on the area and the search began for little Jenell and her grandmother — a race against the darkness of night. Shortly after 6:00 pm news came that a little girl’s body had been found near Freeport Wharf, pushed along by fierce flood waters that covered roads in much of Montego Bay. She was noticed by a ship’s captain in the vicinity of Berth 3 and the police alerted. She was wearing the blue jeans dress, pink blouse and pink shoes her family had provided to the police as a description about three hours earlier.