Searchers are combing Beaver Lake near Coppermine Lodge for the body of a person who may have drowned Tuesday during a boating accident.
Crews started at 7 a.m. Wednesday in hopes of getting ahead of storms forecast later in the afternoon, said Alan Bland, a ranger with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Five people were in a canoe towing a paddle boat that had run into trouble when the canoe capsized, Bland said.
“They all scattered when they hit the water,” Bland said.
Some of the group ended up on a sandbar or gravel islands 100 yards from land, others swam to shore. The overloaded canoe was between the two areas when it began to sink. Not all the people in the canoe were wearing life jackets, Bland said. Four of them made it to shore. The target of the search was one of those who was not wearing a life vest, but was thought to be a good swimmer.
The air was warm, but water temperatures were about 60 degrees at the surface.
“Within a minute it can set you to hypothermia,” Bland said.
Searchers are using sonar, sweeping about a quarter mile square area between the sandbar and the shore. The water is only about 85 feet deep, but the search will take time because no one in the group saw the person go under, Bland said.
A search of the shore was conducted Tuesday night.
“This could be our 115th drowning on the lake," Bland said. "We have yet to have someone drown in a life vest.”
Crews involved in the search include the Benton County Sheriff’s Office, Rocky Branch Fire Department, Arkansas Game & Fish, Benton County Emergency Management, Benton and Carroll County dive teams, the Benton County Coroner and the Mennonite Disaster Service Team.