Police, Firefighters, Rescue Teams Continue Search For Diana Brown, Missing After Flash Floods Ripped Through Poudre Canyon
LARIMER COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4) - The Poudre Canyon was peppered with police, firefighters, search and rescue teams and more on Saturday as a two-month-long effort to find a missing woman was ramped up. Diana Brown has been missing since July 20 when her home was swept away in flash flooding. Three of her family members were in the home with her at the time, their bodies were found downstream days after the flood.
When the fatal flooding happened homes, trees, cars and more jammed together at a bridge just west of the Town of Rustic. First responders were unable to locate Diana Brown. As time passed some believed her body may be located in the large pile of debris mounded in the Poudre River.
However, as recovery teams cleared the debris, Diana's body was never located.
Saturday more than 120 search and rescue experts combed a 16 mile stretch of the Poudre Canyon. The focus was in and around the river east of Rustic. Joe Shellhammer, Operations Captain with Larimer County Sheriff's Office said the teams decided to search that stretch because the other three bodies were found downstream from the debris pile.
"About 100,000 cubic yards of debris came out of Black Hallow," Shellhammer told CBS4's Dillon Thomas. "She wasn't in the main debris pile that was right at Black Hollow."
Search teams combed through the river, the riverbank and even overviewed the landscape from above.
"That is including drone teams, dog teams, ground searchers. We have Civil Air Patrol overhead and dive teams. We are trying to touch the whole river and hopefully find her," Shellhammer said.
Though Brown is presumed deceased, Shellhammer and the first responders participating in the search wanted to help the family have a sense of closure during the difficult time. Shellhammer said recovering the missing would also help bring closure to the first responders who have spent many weeks of their own lives searching for Brown.
Brown was not found during the search on Saturday. LCSO said they will continue to search for Diana until she is found.
However, Shellhammer said the rapidly-changing weather will soon make the search more difficult.
"The debris piles are so huge, and so spread out. And the sand has kind of turned like concrete. So, we are going to have to do some hand searching on those," Shellhammer said. "We will keep searching. It makes it a lot more difficult when winter comes. We will have to try different techniques. But, we don't stop."
The Larimer County Sheriff's Office released this statement on Monday morning: There are no additional searches planned at this time, but if new information becomes available leading us to search a particular place we will.
