Woman taking pictures in Pennypack Creek drowns in flash flood

A 30-year-old photographer was reportedly killed by flash flooding that suddenly sent powerful waves through Pennypack Creek while she was there to take pictures.

Rebecca Bunting, 30, of Philadelphia, was swept into the creek on Saturday, June 2, just as a powerful rainstorm began battering the region. Police diving crews had to call off their search that night due to increasingly powerful storm activity. When police resumed the search on Sunday, they found Bunting’s body trapped under old furniture that was washed up in the creek upstream of Frankford Avenue, 6ABC reported.

“Just woke up to the devastating news that we lost a talented member of the urbex (abandoned/urban exploration) community,” wrote photographer Michael E. Pearson on Instagram on Monday, who called Bunting a talented photographer and model. “She did what she loved on both sides of the lens.”

Witnesses told 6ABC that Bunting was with her boyfriend, standing just inside a storm drain under Ryan Avenue in Pennypack Creek to photograph the nearby scenery, when a powerful wave of water from nearby flash flooding hit the two from behind.

Bunting’s boyfriend, who has not been identified, was able to pull himself out of the water and survived. But he could not find Bunting, who had been swept away, friends told 6ABC. Police were called around 6:15 p.m. on June 2, and the search was called off roughly three hours later as lightning storms and rain battered the region.

Bunting’s body was found at 10 a.m. on Sunday in the creek upstream of Frankford Avenue, police said.

Bunting worked as a waitress at Miller’s Ale House, in addition to working as a photographer and model. She for years had been photographing abandoned and formerly industrial spaces, sometimes known as “ruin porn,” and maintained a photography website, abandonedcentral.com. She posted her photography on Instagram under the handle @_bword.