On Wednesday, the Coast Guard tweeted that two kayaks that were being pulled by the sailboat were found as well.
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“We have been covering that area since last night”, Case said, noting that many things, including airplane lights and reflections, can be mistaken for flares, but rescue crews are treating the sighting as if it were a flare.
Search crews are continuing to search land and water for any remaining survivors of the Kimberly family Friday morning. “We put in the variables of the drift and where they were last seen, the currents, and it calculates a search area and that’s where we conduct our search”, he says.
On Sunday, four members of the Kimberly family-Rebecca, 17, Roger, 13, Donny, 15, and their father Ace, 45, vanished in their sailboat after leaving the coast of Sarasota, Florida.
The search covered 34,000 square miles along the Southwest Florida coast and Gulf of Mexico, according to the USCG.
“As a father of four, I know how devastating these findings are to them, and we’re cognizant of that and we’re trying to treat them with the utmost respect”, U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Captain Gregory Case said. Ace Kimberly reportedly contacted his brother Sunday afternoon to say the family had encountered rough seas and thunderstorms.
“It’s tough”, Case said.
The plan was to sail to Fort Myers to do repairs on the boat, which the family had been living on for about a year, reports the Daily Mail.
The search for a missing Sarasota family that disappeared one week ago has been called off.
On Wednesday, crews located a debris field 37 miles west of Sanibel.
It was found about 38 miles off Sanibel Island, which sits a few miles off of Fort Myers’ coast. They said items recovered included six life jackets, water jugs and a propane tank.
Green and yellow kayaks towed by the boat also have been recovered. Rescuers also found life jackets that they believe were among the eight of nine flotation devices the family had on board.
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Two bodies were located during the week-long search and have been transferred to local authorities for identification. Although officials have not released the person’s identity, several media outlets have said it is Rebecca Kimberly.
