It’s the second day of a search effort for a young girl missing from the small Prince of Wales Island town of Port Protection. As of this (Tuesday) morning, searchers had not yet found any confirmed signs of 13-year-old Makayla McRoberts, according to Troopers spokesperson Megan Peters.
“Unfortunately we haven’t located the 13-year-old girl yet. Right now, they have 41 ground searchers in the area divided up into 11 teams. On top of that they have four SAR dog teams. There’s four skiffs in the area looking and also the Coast Guard has its helo up in the air searching the area,” she said.
Makayla’s family reported her missing the evening of Sunday, May 6th after she had not returned from a hike on a trail near the end of Port Protection Road. According to Peters, she was supposed to have returned by 5 pm that night and family and friends were unable to find her.
Peters said, “About 9:30 that same night we got a call from the family. They were very concerned. The search started the next day. The weather wasn’t quite cooperating for us initially. It was hard to get searchers in the area. All the road access was pretty much blocked off due to the hard snow pack. So people had to get in there by air to start searching the area”
Troopers say Makayla wasn’t carrying anything with her and was last seen wearing Levi’s, a brown hooded sweatshirt and tennis shoes. She is fairly new to Alaska and not very familiar with the area.
Along with the Coast Guard and State Troopers, the search effort involves volunteers from the Ketchikan and Klawok rescue Squads as well as Sitka Mountain Rescue and Port Protection residents.
Port Protection is a small fishing town which is home to about 53 people on Northwest Prince of Wales Island.
