Mesquite Fire Chief Rusty Wilson said the unidentified woman was inside a vehicle under a bridge on Military Parkway. Officials added that the car was possibly swept off the road on the Scyene Road Bridge on the Interstate Highway 635 service road. The vehicle was later discovered by officials as the water receded, according to Chief Wilson. Late Monday, the victim was identified as 60-year-old Jolene Jarrell. Officials and friends of Jarrell who were at the scene said she was a mother of two sons and a daughter who loved her children and grandchild. They added that Jarrell was an Uber driver and was on her way home from dropping off a passenger in Terrell when she was caught in the flood. Friends said she was on the phone with her husband of more than 20 years when her car began to fill with water, first to her ankles, then to her knees, and then suddenly the call dropped. “They told me they were on the phone with her themselves and they lost contact with her, so they were in the act of looking for her,” Chief Wilson said. It was Jarrell’s husband, friends said, who first spotted the wheels of his wife’s SUV under the bridge. Police and firefighters rushed to the scene when rescue efforts turned into recovery. In total, the city of Mesquite said it received 11.66 inches of rain during Monday’s historic rainfall event. TxDOT photos and cameras showed the entire area around I-635 and Scyene Road underwater Monday morning. Teacher Brittany Kyle and her two children stopped by the area and decided to evacuate their car. He said the driver of a semi-truck motioned for them to wait out the storm in the cab of his truck. Kyle later learns that someone died in the flood. “It hit me. I cried,” Kyle said. “I closed my door and cried because it could easily have been us.” Mesquite Fire says a woman was discovered inside a vehicle under a bridge on Military Parkway. The employee says she was on the phone with her family and lost contact. @NBCDFW pic.twitter.com/Q1iW0IqRao — Meredith Yeomans (@YeomansNBC5) August 22, 2022 A woman is dead after her vehicle was swept away by flooding in Mesquite, fire officials confirmed to NBC 5.
