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It was a hard choice, but in the end it was no choice at all. A small rescue boat had come up the driveway, offering help. Carl Ellis was with his frail, 73-year-old mother, Wilma Jean. The boat had room for one.

The water was already up to Mr. Ellis’s knees, so there was no time to wait for rescuers with more room. His mother would have to go alone.

Using the back of a pickup truck as a gangplank, Mr. Ellis helped his mother into the boat, her belongings trussed up in garbage bags. There were no life jackets, but it was a short trip and the rescuers promised to come right back for him.

He never saw them — or his mother — again.

Any catastrophic weather event has its measurable aspects: inches of rain, speed of wind, cubic yards of debris. Others are incalculable: waterlogged photos, frayed communities, the invisible moorings of permanence and safety swept away.

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Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital in Houston, where Wilma Jean Ellis, after being rescued twice, arrived in a body bag. Bryan Thomas for The New York Times

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Twice Saved From Houston Floods but Still, Mysteriously, a Victim …

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