THE SECOND day of an all-out search for two mushroom pickers missing east of Terrace since Sunday, Sept. 22 began under a drizzling rain.
Searchers gathered for an early morning briefing at Terrace Search and Rescue headquarters on Greig Ave. with some teams heading out almost immediately to look for Ike Murray, 26, and Michael Devlin Sabo, 32.
They’re traveling approximately 53 kilometres east of Terrace on Hwy16 to a marshalling point before taking boats to the Lorne Creek area on the north side of the Skeena River.
That’s where Murray, Sabo and a third man traveled via boat last Sunday.
Sabo and Murray headed off together to pick mushrooms the morning of Sept. 22 but when they did not return as scheduled that afternoon, the third man came back to town to summon help.
“Let’s go and give this a good day,” Dave Jephson from Terrace Search and Rescue told those assembled. “We want you to be diligent and do a great job in that area.”
The number of searchers has been growing daily with yesterday’s total being approximately 150 – the highest yet, said Jephson.
That number includes a Canadian Rangers group and trained search and rescue team leaders and managers from southern B.C.
Trans Canada Pipelines, one of the companies planning to build a natural gas pipeline in the region, paid for the use of a helicopter yesterday and is doing the same again today. Yesterday it covered area higher up from the main search area.
“It’s good for safety as well,” said Jephson of the helicopter’s presence.
Employees from Focus, a company hired by Trans Canada to do work along the planned pipeline route, are onboard the helicopter.
