Clearly, some of you don't quite understand the way a search works. When a call comes in, an Incident Commander is assigned. It is usually the highest-ranking officer available. He has a scribe, whose job it is to record, on paper, all actions and communications involved in the search as well as the time these occur. He also has assistants assigned to him and he chooses a site commander (the person in charge "on scene", who dispatches everyone there.
The first step is called the bastard search. All of the expected places are checked. This includes bathrooms, restaurants, coves that people frequent. Simultaneously, the assistants are gathering information: cell phone numbers, OnStar numbers, home & work numbers, local accommodation numbers. All of these are called. As much information as possible regarding clothing, ID, provisions and experience of the lost people is gathered and collated. After all this is done, if the person has not absolutely, positively been confirmed as found, what do you think happens?
Well, what is supposed to happen is a full-blown multi-agency search with all available resources begins. Why? Because the standard is that the search continues until those lost are rescued or recovered.
What actually did happen? Somebody said, “Aw shucks, it's a big area to search, it’s late, they're probably gone by now anyway.” No verification of whether or not that was the case. This violates the most basic principles of the search and is the DIRECTLY ATTRIBUABLE cause of these people not being found until they had expired. This sort of assumption is LETHAL and a total F.U. to lost public taxpayers.
When I hear the lame excuses asking "Why didn't someone say longitude and latitude coordinates instead of just coordinates" or "well maybe the ranger didn't have GPS" or how far from the coordinates were they found?" it makes me want to scream. Any ignoramus ranger knows what coordinates are. They all have GPS, and if they don't or don't know how to use them, THEY NEED TO ESCALATE THE SEARCH TO A HIGHER AUTHORITY! When you ask, "What's the Sheriff going to do? Roll a squad car on the sand?" Respectfully, that's none of your damned business!" You have no idea what airships the Sheriff has at his disposal or what interagency agreements exist. NONE OF THIS JUSTIFIES CALLING OFF THE SEARCH. A search NEVER gets called off because someone thinks they're probably okay or gone. This MUST BE VERIFIED and was not. When I hear you say, "They looked in the most likely places" I want to say yes, and they didn't find them. This is like ‘looking for a coin you lost 4 blocks away because the light is better over here.’
Bottom line, this isn’t a question of poor judgment and is not open to conjecture. The wheel doesn’t get invented from scratch when a missing persons call comes in and people don’t sit around and guess what they think happened and they don’t vote on what to do. There are strict protocols to follow and they were not followed. It is entirely possible that, because of this, two young people are dead. NO MORE B.S., NO MORE EXCUSES!
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