Update, 8:45am Thursday: according to Nome City Manager Tom Moran, the latest search efforts for Joseph Balderas have been called off, effective 8pm Wednesday night, after searching on Tuesday and Wednesday provided no new clues or evidence.
Tuesday morning’s briefing in the Nome City Fire Hall began the ground search phase of a new, autumn search and rescue effort for missing person Joseph Balderas.
City Manager Tom Moran is acting as incident commander for this search effort, even though the search’s focus is a site more than 40 miles outside of Nome city limits.
“The City Council authorized $10,000 for a volunteer search effort to be led by Nome Search and Rescue. And the volunteer fire department and ambulance department stepped in and started their own search, not underneath the umbrella of the State Troopers this time,” said the City Manager.
The Alaska State Troopers are not formally involved with this search effort, however, Sgt. Cross stated that they paid for the cost of insurance for two cadaver dogs and their handlers. The two dog teams began searching the designated 8 square mile grid on Wednesday morning and were joined by helicopter support in the afternoon.
One of the on-scene commanders, Paul Kosto, and two spotters went up in a Bering Air helicopter on Tuesday afternoon to look for clues to Balderas’ whereabouts. Kosto says the tundra conditions are more favorable then they were during the July search.
“From the elevation that we’ll be at, we will be able to see a shoe or a jacket or even something that might be partially buried in either leaves or if animal has taken little bits of stuff. The one clue that we’re kind of hoping he had with him is a bright green backpack which would have been difficult to find with all the foliage we’ve got. Now the colors have changed dramatically out there, we’re in grays and some dark reds, and probably about 50% of the leaves are off the brush, so visibility is going to improve, and the color schemes have changed for us,” remarked Kosto.
Besides Kosto, the other on-scene commanders are Kevin Knowlton and Matt Johnson, along with the base commander Seiji Heck. Tracking devices were provided to ground searchers Tuesday morning along with radios to communicate with the mobile commander at the fire truck and the base commander at the fire hall.
Kosto mentioned this search is more organized than the last search and emphasized the importance of safety throughout this effort. According to Moran, the search was called off Wednesday night shortly before 8pm, due to no evidence or clues being found.
