LAUREL COUNTY, Ky. — Two weeks after his disappearance following a storm on Laurel River Lake, rescue and emergency workers continue the search for 32-year-old Clarence Holmes.

Throughout the days since Holmes’ boat was found banked and idling on an island in an area of the lake known as Twin Coves, various rescue teams and water rescue teams have assisted the local rescue squad in the search that has yet been fruitless.

Holmes was last seen on July 5 when he assisted other boaters in securing their house boats as a severe storm approached. Holmes’ family has a houseboat docked at Holly Bay Marina as well as a pontoon boat. After the storm hit, Holmes’ pontoon was found banked against a small island, still running and in neutral. His personal belongings — including his wallet, a cell phone, a Holly Bay Marina radio, cigarettes and lighter, backpack, straw hat  and flip flops — were still aboard the pontoon when it was found.

Larry Vanhook, chief of the London-Laurel County Rescue Squad, said the search has incorporated other teams from across the state whose equipment is more technologically advanced than that of the local rescue team. Vanhook said many rumors are circulating through the community that he has refused assistance from other search and rescue teams, but he denies such actions.

“We’ve had people call from all over and I haven’t refused anyone,” he said. “I’ll tell them who is coming to help and sometimes they know that team has better equipment so they don’t come, but I haven’t denied anyone who has called and wants to help in the search.”

Vanhook and Albert Hale, public safety director for Laurel County, are working together to coordinate the search efforts.

“We have divers that have been going down to search and we have to make sure we don’t have too many people out there,” he said. “That’s why we’re coordinating the search efforts.”

Pulaski County Rescue Squad, Bluegrass Water and Rescue, and Boone County Rescue are some of the teams that have aided in the search, with each agency offering equipment not owned by the London-Laurel County squad. Bluegrass Water and Rescue, for instance, assisted with cadaver dogs, and sonar cameras that can view the lake depths at farther distances than the camera owned by the Laurel rescue team.

The difficulty in searching the lake is the varying depths of the farmland valley which was flooded in 1972 to create Laurel River Lake to generate electricity for the area. While the lake website states the average depth is 70 feet, both Hale and Vanhook said there are sections where the lake has been measured at 300-plus feet. In other places, the area surrounding islands and banks may be shallow, decline to 25 feet deep, then drop off to 190 feet. Under the water are trees, cliff lines and the remains of the former farmland at varying depths that further complicate search efforts.

The total blackness of the underwater searches limits the rescue efforts, Vanhook said, as well as recreational boaters who sometimes approach the search area too closely.

“We had a search boat with blue lights sitting out there and a boater came through it,” Vanhook said. “We had divers down at that time and they could have been hurt. The boater didn’t know what depth the divers were — they could have been surfacing and could have been hurt by the propellers of the boat — no one knew that. Doing a search is very complicated and involves a lot of time.”

When teams do go out, they use equipment to mark off small areas, known as grids, then send cameras down in that area, The camera leaves ‘marks’ underwater that show the operators where the camera has been as well as showing pictures of the lake area.

“The water is unforgiving,” Hale chimed in. “We’ve searched for people for two weeks before we found them.”

Vanhook also denies rumors the search efforts for Holmes will be suspended this weekend.

“We are taking this on a day by day basis. We will not stop the search until we have exhausted all our resources,” Vanhook said.



njohnson@sentinel-echo.com