The California National Guard joined this Wednesday the search for Kyle Doan, a 5-year-old boy missing since the beginning of the week after the floods that emergency services have characterized as “one of the deadliest disasters in the history” of the state. US. .
So far, heavy rains have claimed the lives of at least 16 people, and flooding has caused road closures, downed trees and numerous power outages.
The boy disappeared on Monday: on his way to the first day of school with his mother, the car they were traveling in, a truck, was trapped by the force of the waters on a dirt road. Kyle’s mother, Lindsy Doan, managed to get him out of the vehicle, but the force of the current eventually pulled them apart.. Lindsey managed to save herself by clinging to a tree; Kyle finally disappeared.
“He made all the right decisions under the circumstances,” Brian Doan, the boy’s father, told CNN. “They couldn’t have stayed in the car, the chain ended up overturning it… That’s why they left. It was the right decision.”
The searches began on Monday, but have already had to be interrupted several times due to worsening weather conditions, which endangered the rescue teams. Three days after his son’s disappearance, Brian Doan doesn’t have much hope of finding him alive. “The most difficult thing is to admit that this is no longer a rescue operation, but a rescue operation”he says, excited. “It’s something no parent wants to admit. I knew by the end of the first night…it’s a very difficult truth to face, especially when it comes to your own child.”
Searches have focused primarily on the downriver area where Lindsy Doan was rescued and where Kyle went missing. Authorities were able to locate the overturned SUV buried in mud and debris. “I was hugging a tree with one arm and holding Kyle with the other, but the current pushed us and my hand slipped,” the mother says in the first person. “My wife tells me that he told her ‘Don’t worry, mom,'” the father revealed..
Source: Observadora
