Agencies hold massive search for Eastern KY woman who’s been missing since historic floods
A massive search was conducted Saturday for a missing Breathitt County woman who disappeared during the July 28 floods in Eastern Kentucky.
More than 160 searchers from 25 state and federal agencies, as well as nine canines, came together to search 12 miles of flood plain along the North Fork of the Kentucky River in attempts to locate Vanessa Baker.
Baker, 60, has been missing since July 28. She was last seen at her residence in the area of Lower River Caney Road. She is from the Lost Creek Community, and is described as 5-feet-7-inches tall, weighing approximately 215 lbs. with dark-colored hair.
According to the Wolfe County Search and Rescue Team, their group, along with Kentucky Emergency Management, Breathitt County Emergency Management and the Campbell County Land Search and Rescue have been planning the search for over a month.
While they didn’t locate Baker, the rescue team said several clues were identified and are being investigated, according to a Facebook post.
The post said that in addition to the ground searches, new drone technology was also incorporated.
“High probability areas were flown while taking photos every 2 seconds on a predetermined flight path,” the agency said in a post. “These photos were then analyzed using Loc8 software that specifically looked for certain color patterns. Vanessa was wearing a piece of maroon clothing and this software provided a number of potential targets that ground searchers then investigated.”
“We would like to thank every organization that participated in the search. A special thanks to Campbell County Land SAR for the use of their mobile command post, Fish & Wildlife for transporting searchers into hard to reach areas, Kentucky State Police for providing a PIO, Breathitt County School system for providing bus transportation, KSDA for canine searchers, Red STAR Wilderness EMS for providing medical support for the searchers & Randy Catlette for spending several days flying a drone over the search areas,” the team posted.
