BPSO: Three of four missing in Sabine River located

Merryville, LA (KPLC) - The Beauregard Parish Sheriff’s Office is attempting to locate the bodies of four people who drowned in the Sabine River in the late hours of August 26.

Three of the four missing people have been located, Sheriff Herford said. BPSO is continuing to search for the fourth.

The Beauregard Parish Sheriff’s Office received a call Friday night of distressed individuals in the water near the boat ramp that’s located off Palmer Lake Road and Mouth of the Creek Road, which is a public access point to the Sabine River.

The victims were three adults and one juvenile, authorities said. The three adults supposedly were attempting to save the juvenile from the river current, but were unsuccessful.

Divers from different agencies have been on the scene since first light Saturday morning trying to help locate four missing people.

“We’re currently looking for, conducting search and rescue operations for 3 adult males and a juvenile male. We certainly appreciate all the assistance that has been given by multiple agencies not just inside Beauregard Parish but outside and we expect that if this continues, we’ll need continued assistance from those folks,” Beauregard Parish Sheriff Mark Herford said.

Herford said the Sabine River is known to constantly change courses almost daily, which can cause problems for swimmers in the area.

“This is a very popular spot for people to come and swim and hang out, it’s a beautiful beach, the problem is this river is dangerous. It changes daily. Where it might be ankle deep yesterday, it might be 20 feet deep today. And the current is extremely strong so it doesn’t take much for somebody to get in trouble pretty quickly,” Herford said.

After the sun goes down, the Beauregard Parish Sheriff’s Office has plans to keep the search and rescue team going.

“Well once it gets dark, we’ll still have boats in the water, we just can’t put divers down, visibility is extremely low, and with the current as bad as it is, if a diver is in trouble, we can’t see that at night to be able to send a rescue diver in to help him, so it’s just not safe for us to be able to dive at night. But we will still have boats that will be running the river and we intend to maintain this scene with our personnel until this is resolved,” Herford said.

BPSO has not released the names of the victims at this time.