DAVID GREENE, HOST:
One of the confirmed deaths from tropical storm Harvey was a first responder. At 4 a.m. on Sunday, 60-year-old Steve Perez left home to report for work in downtown Houston. Sergeant Perez was a 34-year veteran of the Houston Police Department. Later that morning, he called in to say that he just couldn't make his way through the floodwaters, that he was going to report to another station. And that was the last headquarters heard from him. On Monday, when Perez didn't respond at roll call, officers began to worry. They sent out a team to look for him. Yesterday, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo had trouble getting through a press conference as he was talking about the search.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
ART ACEVEDO: So we couldn't find him. And once our dive team got there, it was too treacherous to go under and look for him. So we made a decision to leave officers there waiting until the morning because, as much as we wanted to recover him last night, we could not put another - more officers at risk for what we knew in our hearts was going to be a recovery mission.
GREENE: The dive team recovered Sergeant Perez's body the next morning. He is survived by his wife and his two children. The chief of police described him as a sweet, gentle public servant.
(SOUNDBITE OF NIKLAS AMAN'S "SHORT STORY") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.