At this time last year, we were about halfway through our search. I think we had searched somewhere between 40 and 50 mines. Temperatures in 29 Palms were hovering between 100-110 degrees. The dog teams could only work for about 20 minutes at a time before needing a break in their vehicles. We had borrowed about 5 additional gas detectors so that we could safely put more teams underground. We had SAR teams from L.A., San Bernardino, Riverside and several other counties helping us.
We blew out the transmission in the Cave Team truck. At one point, we left the Suburban parked with the windows down and came back to find it full of bees. Other vehicles got flat tires and everyone had to work to stay on top of hydration.
Several of the more remote sites got searched via teams inserted by helicopter. The investigators were doing their thing, and we were carefully planning each new search area, while checking off those already cleared. Believe it or not, keeping track of what's been done is just as much work as deciding what's next.
We had about 100 more "high probability" features on the list to search, and another 300+ identified from aerial photos, old maps and local knowledge. At this point, we had every resource available to the Sheriff on this, and we were determined to win. It was frustrating, as we had been at it for so long and knew she was very likely somewhere right in front of us.
