“It’s important, because this is downstream from Hunt. This is a very hot zone, that needs to be checked, and checked critically,” said Rescue Diver Steven Bishop.
KERRVILLE, Texas — A search and recovery dive team focused their efforts on Nimitz Lake in Kerrville.
The dive team says the dam at the lake is a hotspot where debris piles up.
The dive team searched the lake and also the area near the dam, which they say can be a dangerous and tough job.
“It is dangerous, we’re diving by a dam. You can see, thankfully it’s in a spillway dam, so it’s a little bit safer, it’s still not safe,” said Rescue Diver, Steven Bishop.
Bishop, with Blue Diver Search & Recovery, hit the waters at Nimitz Lake Friday afternoon.
The team is working in partnership with Search & Support San Antonio and got permission from the Kerr County’s Emergency Operations Center to conduct their search.
“It’s important because this is downstream from Hunt,” said Bishop.
According to the Kerr County lead, the decision to search the lake was made during a Kerr County Commissioner’s Court meeting. Commissioners even talked about draining the lake, but ultimately city leaders decided not to, citing cost.
“This is a very hot zone, that needs to be checked, and checked critically,” said Bishop.
The dive team says the lake had been searched using sonar, but they brought along a new tool that also adds AI technology called AquaEye.
The AquaEye device can scan the area of a football field in less than a minute.
“We run our AquaEye, and that will scan, and hopefully get hits if there’s a person based on body tissue density,” said Bishop.
During their search, the AquaEye device yielded two hits, but after searching the waters, Bishop did not make any recoveries.
“We were hoping that we can bring loved ones back home. This is a pretty horrific job to do and you don’t want to do it,” said Bishop.
Bishop and Blue Diver Search & Recovery say they will be wrapping up search operations and head back home to Dallas, they also want to thank the community, families, supporters and donors.
The organization started a GoFundMe to help with expenses, including lodging, food, gas and equipment, and the community responded by raising nearly $50,000.
If you would like to contribute to the GoFundMe, you can click here.
The organization says they plan to use some of those fund to make donations to those impacted, and helping in aiding searches.