Crews on standby for Chattooga Recovery Effort

As crews begin the third week of search and recovery operations for the body of Thomas Hill, Mother Nature has forced the Incident Command Team to suspend on-water operations again on Thursday. “The river’s flows are well-above 2.0 feet again today with more rain in the forecast,” said Oconee County Emergency Management Director Scott Krein. “Each day we can’t be on the river is frustrating because we want to recover Mr. Hill and give his family some closure. That’s always foremost in our minds, safely recovering Mr. Hill for his family.” The Incident Command Team met Thursday morning to re-evaluate the ongoing operations. Each day, a crew is on standby for the following day’s effort. Because of the uncertainty of river flows and the weather, the team is deciding each afternoon whether on-river operations will take place the next day. In the meantime, crews continue to hike into the Five Falls Area to conduct search efforts from the shoreline. Operations that do not require putting people or equipment in the water can be conducted at sustained river flows of 2.5 feet or lower. Therefore, the next priority for the team is to bring in the U.S. Geological Survey to map the river bottom. U.S. Geological Survey personnel can deploy and manipulate a floating Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler from the riverbanks. “We’ve heard back from our cofferdam expert that installation of any temporary water diversion is dependent on how deep the water is at Sockem-Dog,” said U.S. Forest Service District Ranger Mike Crane. “We need hard data from USGS to us determine whether a diversion is a safe, feasible option. Right now, that’s just one option that we continue to explore.” Ideally, the team will be able to recover Mr. Hill without any additional measures. “The next time we have sustained river flows below 2.0 feet, we’ll be back to in-water operations,” said Krein. “That means we’ll have a full crew operating side-scan sonar, cameras and recovery equipment from rafts. We’ll also have divers on standby and support from commercial river guides.” Looking at the weather forecast for the next few days, the Incident Command Team hopes that efforts can get back to normal sooner rather than later.  “It’s frustrating when we’re forced to suspend operations because of things beyond our control,” said Krein. “There’s a family in Florida that’s depending on us. We hate to let them down.”