HOUSTON — Shivering from hypothermia, little Jordyn Grace was clutching her mother’s unresponsive body as the floodwaters rose around her. A rescue team in a Zodiac boat, on the lookout for those in distress in Beaumont, Tex., spotted the small pink backpack the girl was wearing and pulled her and her mother aboard.

“Mama was saying her prayers,” the 3-year-old, recovering on Wednesday in a Beaumont hospital, told a relative, Antionette Logan, 38.

“Jordyn told me they were in the yucky water for quite a while,” Ms. Logan said. “It’s a tragedy that her mama died, but it’s a miracle that Jordyn survived.”

With the death toll from Hurricane Harvey climbing to 38, those who survived the storm are just now learning the names of those who did not and the terrible ways in which they died. Some episodes are particularly haunting, like the tale of Jordyn and her mother Colette Sulcer, 41, a nurse who died on Tuesday in the flooding in Beaumont, about 100 miles from waterlogged Houston, as her daughter clung to her body.

Most of the victims identified so far also drowned: Agnes Stanley, 89, who was found floating in four feet of water inside her Houston home, where she lived alone; Alexander Sung, 64, a clockmaker in South Houston, who died in his beloved store after trying to rescue merchandise; Joshua Feuerstein, 33, who the police said drove around a barricade, a fatal mistake. Sgt. Steve Perez, 60, a veteran police officer in Houston, drove into a flooded underpass on his way to the station.

Then there were the deaths of Manuel Saldivar, 84, and Belia Saldivar, 81, and their four great-grandchildren: Daisy, 6; Xavier, 8; Dominic, 14; and Devy, 16, who were found in a partly submerged van in Greens Bayou.

The couple’s son, Sammy Saldivar, was driving the van and managed to escape through a window, watching helplessly as it disappeared under the water. The authorities were first alerted to the van around 10 a.m. on Sunday when they heard the screams of Mr. Saldivar, who was clinging to a tree after climbing through the partly open driver’s side window.

Harvey killed in other ways too. In Montgomery County, Lisa Jones, 60, had just lain down for a nap in her bedroom when a tree fell through the roof, crushing her. Her husband was in the living room, helpless to reach her through the debris until firefighters arrived.

In a region where it is difficult to find a person without a harrowing story to tell, the story of Jordyn, the 3-year-old who saw her mother die, moved all who heard it. But it hit hardest within the large Beaumont family of nurses, pastors and military veterans who are relatives of Ms. Sulcer and her daughter and who live not far from them.

Ms. Sulcer, a surgical nurse, and her only daughter had tried to escape the flooding Tuesday in their car, taking a service road of Interstate 10. But the water caught up with them.

Relatives described Ms. Sulcer as a dedicated nurse who entered the profession after the death years ago of her mother, who was also a nurse.