An adventurous couple from Texas vanished while on an annual trip in Utah — just after a severe thunderstorm caused dangerous flash floods there, officials said.
A massive search party including ground teams, a helicopter, dogs and volunteers from the public has been searching for the couple since Monday, June 24, the Grand County Sheriff’s Office said on Facebook.
Family identified the missing couple as Raymond Ankofski, 58, and Maranda Ankofski, 51, KSTU reported.
Sheriff’s officials first received a report of an abandoned vehicle at the Steel Bender trailhead Monday morning and later learned it was associated with the missing couple.
Multiple agencies set out to search the area and discovered the Utility Terrain Vehicle (UTV) the couple had been driving around the Steel Bender Off Road Trail area, officials said.
Officials warned the public to steer clear of the area during the search and instead provide food and drinks for the teams by contacting the Grand County Sheriff’s Office.
Anyone with information about the couple’s location should contact the sheriff’s office.
“Our top priority remains the swift and safe resolution of this situation,” officials said.
In Facebook groups for locals, residents coordinated search parties with the couple’s family in Texas.
“It warmed our heart when we heard last night that a gentleman spent literally all night long till 8 o’clock this morning and took his horse and his dog and was out looking for them all night last night,” Donna Stevens, Ray Ankofski’s sister, told KSTU.
The family told the station the couple travels to the area every year, and that they were last heard from Friday, June 21, the day destructive flash floods drowned the area, downed power lines and damaged roads.
Grand County Search and Rescue crews saved 20 people who were stranded in a dark canyon when the storm swept through and caused flash flooding, McClatchy News previously reported.
Some communications were also knocked out when lightning struck a radio tower as officials responded to hazards from the storm, Grand County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
Stevens told KSL that members of the search party found a cooler and other belongings that may have come from the couple’s UTV but “ no signs of (the couple) themselves. ”
“We’re all in Texas, we’ve posted multiple things on multiple ATV groups,” she told the station. “I feel kind of helpless when, you know, you’re sitting here in Texas and it’s like, ‘yes, we could hop on a plane and go to Moab,’ but I’m not sure to do what.”
The family has been “doing a lot of praying” in the meantime, she told the station.
“Their family is everything, and right now everyone is torn apart, pretty heartbroken, and every hour it feels like days that goes by with no word,” she told KSTU. “At this point, we’re just keeping our fingers crossed that they find a way or somebody finds them.”
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