That road had been closed after muddy water spilled across both lanes and drivers were rerouted — but Andrew had gone through before the barricades went up.

Search crews went back to that route. The heavy rain had erased nearly every tire track, and thick brush covered the lower side of the road.

From above, nothing stood out but broken limbs and water rushing through a drainage ditch.

Then one rescuer noticed a strip of flattened brush far too wide to have been laid down by the wind.

The team climbed over the guardrail. Below them, half-buried under mud, branches, and flood debris, sat Andrew’s pickup.

It had left the road near a washed-out shoulder, slid down the embankment, and come to rest at an angle behind the dense brush, the passenger side pinned to the ground, the driver’s door hanging open.