MARTIN CITY — The search for 33-year-old Emily Rea, who went missing in July at the Riverside Campground on the shore of Hungry Horse Reservoir is continuing.
Rea went to Hungry Horse Reservoir to go paddle boarding by herself on July 16, 2024, and never returned home.
Flathead County Search and Rescue and The Flathead County Sheriff’s Office began the search after receiving reports that Rea was missing.
“Her vehicle was located in Riverside campground up on Hungry Horse reservoir. We found a paddle board on the opposite side of the reservoir, which is a couple miles on the other side,” said Flathead County Sheriff Brian Heino.
Crews then began searching the shoreline and surrounding wilderness with dogs, helicopters and other land resources on both sides of the reservoir. which turned up no leads, despite months of searching.
“It really pushed us towards the water operations. The difficulty we had was it was a pretty large area, and basically Hungry Horse Reservoir is a back-filled canyon of water. So there's a lot of debris on the bottom," Sheriff Heino explained."And so some of that was, you know, some of the struggles we had. It basically was logged off. A lot of stuff is still down there. "You're trying to identify targets drop, you know, an ROV and underwater camera up on them, and it's 300 feet deep in some of these parts."
The debris and changing terrain also took a toll on resources breaking multiple boats and underwater cameras. Due to damaged equipment and winter approaching, there will be a time when search operations will halt.
“Basically, there will be a period, yes, where we will not be able to go up there, but we are going to continue to kind of target the areas that haven't been searched," Sheriff Heino told MTN. Our main goal, always, is to, you know, to clear or do the best we can clear that area, provide closure to the family, and then leave the investigation open if any other further leads or information comes forward."
After thousands of man-hours searching for Emily Rea, Flathead County Sheriff Brian Heino and Flathead Search and Rescue volunteers have not given up.
“I think as sheriff, we're always going to continue to look, The reservoir varies in depth, so we're going to always be able to be looking at, you know if the depths go down in the spring. Do we have a better opportunity? I think as a leader of the search and rescue portion of our county it's always one of those things where you want resolution," Sheriff Heino said. "And so you continue to try to do everything you can, within your capabilities."
There have been no new leads in the case and Emily’s cell phone still hasn’t been found. Authorities will continue to search when the weather allows.
