It may sound like a lame excuse, but perhaps the weather has something to do with low volunteer turnout. It's been 97 degrees every day for a week now. Searching in the woods full of snakes and insects when it's near 100 degrees isn't everyone's cup of tea, I'm afraid. Holly Bobo disappeared in the spring when it was much cooler and the woods hadn't filled up with brush and weeds. Also that was way out in the country and lots of hunters and farmers were involved, rather than the Signal Mt. crowd.
And I think people realize that there have been searches for the car that turned up nothing on the roads. And while it may seem likely that Gail never left the mountain, her bright red jeep probably did or someone would have seen it by now. That leaves a body to search for, and looking for a dead body in the woods when it is 100 degrees - not something people often want to do.
Sorry if this sounds blunt. :twocents: People always ask why more don't come out and search, but as I've said before, you have to know what you're doing up on the mountain or someone is going to get hurt.
Just yesterday a boy was up at the Blue Hole on the mountain, swinging into the water on a rope, which broke and he fell 20 feet. When you read how much time and man-power it took to rescue him, it becomes a little clearer how dangerous it might be for people to be climbing around if they don't know what they're doing.
Rescue personnel had to carry him 75 yards to level terrain and place him on a 6x6 wheeler. He was then transported two miles out of the woods to the landing area for LifeForce (helicopter) to transport to Erlanger.
Chattanoogan Story
Have to agree with this....most of the people that personally knew Gail turned up for the car search....but ATV and Trails are not in the comfort zone of most of the Town of Signal Mountain residents...and those who do ride the trails are constantly on the look-out and have been since the start and so have felt for some time that the car's not here. The ATV's this Sunday though were awesome because fresh eyes are always a good thing and they were very methodical and are coming back to finish up.
The lack of an outpouring of community support may be somewhat due to the lack of overt official support of the search activities. That's not to say there's no official support though. There's also a lack of family focus here since it is not a close relative being vocal and trying to organise things, people wonder why and so hesitate to interfere..?
It is mystifying, and could well tie back to a lack of church affilliation....but not to a lack of the children's participation in things locally.