NEW ORLEANS – The search continued for the body of Bywater man who has been missing since he and another woman fell into the Mississippi River near Chartres and Alvar last Tuesday, while the mother of the man is questioning how the search has been handled.
EquuSearch, a search team that specializes in finding bodies in the water began its search Monday, almost six days after 42-year-old Jim Dugan disappeared.
“From one o’clock on Wednesday until 2:30 Sunday, I don’t think anything was done,” complained Eleanor Dugan, the missing man’s mother. “Here we are a week later and now we’re doing something?”
The timeline is hazy but friends began searching for Dugan shortly after he went missing, while it is unclear when other search efforts began. The Coast Guard said it had received a report of a missing person on Thursday from the NOPD.
“From the NOPD information passed on to us, there was a missing person,” said Captain John Arenstam of the Coast Guard. “There was no reason to believe they were in river from what the NOPD told us.”
"Even if you have a missing person, don't you say they fell into the river and get everything out there that you can?"
The Coast Guard also does not do “search and recovery missions” but instead focuses on missions where a life can be rescued.
Tim Miller of EquuSearch says he hopes that Dugan’s body, if it is in the river, hasn’t gone far. He said the main impediments to the search are the strong currents and debris in the river.
