Search for N.S. youth who went missing during torrential flooding continues

The search is ongoing for the person under 18 who went missing in Brooklyn, N.S., during extreme flooding on July 22.

Four people, a man, two children, and a youth under 18, went missing after the two vehicles they were travelling in while fleeing their homes were swept away by rushing floodwaters.

The bodies of 52-year-old Nicholas Anthony Holland, six-year-old Natalie Hazel Harnish and six-year-old Colton Sisco were discovered on July 24 and 25.

The missing youth was travelling with Holland when the vehicle they were in was pushed off the road into a nearby flooded field.

“Search efforts will continue through the weekend; all of the partners who’ve come together on this search are determined to recover the youth and reunite them with their family,” RCMP public information officer Cpl. Chris Marshall said in a statement Friday.

RCMP say the search, which has relied heavily on industrial, high-flow pumps to divert more than a lake’s worth of water out of the field, is continuing at a secondary search location nearby.

Police said the primary search location at the field has been “thoroughly covered” and completely drained of water. Search efforts at this spot concluded Thursday evening.

Draining the water from the second search location is “nearly complete.”

There is also a third search area that runs along the shore from Halls Harbour to Brooklyn and from Maitland to Brooklyn. Police say search efforts have been focused on the edges of the river systems that flow into the Minas Basin using support of RCMP air services.

Between 60 to 70 people, which include first responders and volunteers, have been involved in the search each day, police said.

The search has involved members from many Nova Scotia fire departments, search and rescue teams from West Hants, East Hants, Digby, Annapolis County and Valley, the Department of Natural Resources and Renewables, Nova Scotia Public Safety and Field Communications, RCMP police dog services, and civilian contractors.

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