Steve Gravelle, CR Gazette –
UPDATE: On the fourth day since the two girls vanished, Meyers Lake continues to drop.
Authorities searching for cousins Elizabeth Collins, 8, and Lyric Cook, 10, began draining the five-acre lake Monday. The girls’ bikes were found nearby Friday, the day they want missing.
Authorities also taped off a larger section around the shoreline of Meyers Lake Tuesday morning, stepping up search efforts in the area around the lake.
“Everybody wants to know what’s going on,” said Breanna Baron, who stood behind the yellow crime-scene tape ringing the lake.
Baron, 22, and friend Brittany Kugel, 23, live a handful of blocks away. Baron said she often brings her three-year-old goddaughter to the lake to fish and play in the lakeside park.
On most hot summer days, the park is a popular spot for children and their families, said Les Jensen, who lives just a few houses from the park.
“It’s just a safe little town,” said Jensen, 55. “So this is really, really odd.”
The park was nearly silent Tuesday, the only sound the clatter of four TV satellite trucks’ generators and the drone of traffic from Interstate 380, which skirts the park to the south.
“You notice the park doesn’t have many children in it today,” said Jensen. “They’re worried. Right now, it’s like a ghost town on the bike trail.”
Kugel, Baron, and Jensen agree Evansdale residents are keeping their children closer and hoping for a happy ending to the girls’ disappearance.
“In my eyes, I don’t see it,” said Jensen. “But you never know. People are really hoping that it does, but I think every minute that goes by it looks a lot more bleak.”
Two men in kayaks are paddling slow circuits of the pond, closely watching the banks as the water recedes. About 10 feet of muddy bank are exposed.
Jensen said he helped search over the weekend, when police asked for volunteers’ help. He said he walked several acres he owns in the countryside south of town.
Police are holding a press conference at 4 p.m. at Evansdale’s Community Response Center.
