The RCMP say that the search for a young person who has been missing since July 22 will resume when it’s safe to do so
The search for the only person still missing in Nova Scotia after the terrible floods has been put on hold for now, according to the RCMP.
In a press release on Monday, N.S. RCMP Superintendent Sean Auld said that the search has been called off until more water drains out of dangerously deep pockets of water in the secondary search zone.
“Even though we’ve been looking for the missing teen for a long time, we still haven’t found him yet,” Auld said.
On July 22, four people, including a man, two children, and a teenager, were reported missing after their cars were swept away by floods in the Brooklyn area of West Hants Regional Municipality.
Last week, search teams found the bodies of a man, who has been identified as Nicholas Holland, 52, and two 6-year-old children, Natalie Harnish and Colton Sisco.
The police have not said who the young person who went missing is.
The RCMP said that initial efforts to find the youth in the primary search area in Brooklyn ended on July 27. Since then, they have been focusing on a secondary area that is “immediately adjacent” to the Brooklyn search area.
Now, 85% of it has been drained and searched, and police say the search will continue once the deep pockets of water, which should go away on their own in the next few days, have been drained.
The police said they still have hope that the search will be successful.
“The goal is still to get the kids back to their families,” Auld said. “The searchers will get back to that job as soon as it is safe to do so.”
Sunday was the end of a third-level search that went from the shore of Halls Harbour to Brooklyn and from Maitland to Brooklyn.
“So far, searchers have looked over more than 495 acres of land, 104 square kilometers of watershed and tidal waters, and 417 square kilometers of shoreline from the air,” the RCMP said in a press release.
Police said that the search was led by the N.S. Ground Search and Rescue Association, with help from many fire departments and the Department of Natural Resources, among others.
The RCMP said that about 65 people have been helping to look every day.