SOUTH WEBER, Utah — A search and rescue operation continued for a second day along the Weber River after multiple reports of a woman in distress in the water Monday.
“The initial call came in at 5:42 p.m. yesterday afternoon that somebody was in the water,” said Sgt. Paul Babinsky, Weber County Sheriff’s Office. “Multiple people then called in and stated they saw somebody in the water that was yelling.”
The woman’s family spoke briefly with KSL TV Tuesday, requesting to keep personal information about the woman private, but they did ask that it be conveyed that the woman was not a negligent person and knew the dangerous conditions of the water.
They said she was out with her dogs when she disappeared, and believe she somehow went in. The Weber County Sheriff’s Office confirms the woman’s dogs were found wet but unharmed.
Search crew members were stationed at 20 different checkpoints along the river Monday night for several hours — from Uintah to Marriott-Slaterville, which is approximately a 10-mile span — searching for the possible victim.
“The rapids are just, it’s insane,” witness Cody Whitten said.
On Tuesday, the rescue effort to find the missing woman focused on a roughly one-mile stretch of the river running along Cottonwood Drive.
“It’s at flood stage, the river is running really high and super dangerous for our team and anyone nearby,” Eli Whitman, a technical ropes expert helping with the search said. “The banks are undercut so they’re vulnerable, the water is running through the trees, it’s called strainers, it’s very difficult.”
The intensity and depth of the water are two of several challenges rescuers are facing in the river, temperature is another.
“It’s cold water, first of all, cold water is hard to deal with. You get very tired really quickly,” Whitman said.
Throughout Tuesday, roughly 55 rescuers rotated searching the water, some using rafts along the banks of the river, some using dive equipment to check areas of high probability for a person to become stuck.
Despite exhaustion, crews say they’ll continue searching into Tuesday evening. They say they holding onto hope that they’ll find the missing woman soon.
“We’re going to continue to search until they say there is nothing else we can do,” Babinsky said.
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