With Harvey's floodwaters rapidly flowing into the Houston hotel where she worked, Jill Renick reportedly made a frantic cellphone call to a fellow employee: "I'm in an elevator. The water is rushing in. Please help me!"

Those words were among the few clues Renick's family and friends had to go on for a week and a half, when repeated searches of the Omni Houston Hotel failed to turn up any sign of her and desperate calls to shelters and hospitals were similarly fruitless.

Worst fears were confirmed with the discovery of a body in the ceiling of the hotel basement near elevators Thursday, and p...