Family asking for community’s help in finding Whatcom man swept away by flood Monday
A family is asking for the community’s help in finding an Everson man who went missing after floodwaters in the Nooksack-Everson area in Whatcom County swept him away early Monday morning.
Dulce Garcia told The Bellingham Herald her father, Jose Garcia, was driving to work between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 15, when he called Garcia’s mother to warn them the flooding was bad. Garcia said her father told her mother to send help because the current was taking him away.
Garcia’s mother and brother told him to hang on to whatever he could while they called the Everson Police Department. Garcia’s father told them he was holding on to a nearby tree in between O’Reilly’s Auto Parts and Nooksack Valley Middle School, she said.
Around 10 a.m. or 11 a.m., Garcia said Everson police found her father’s truck, but he was not with the vehicle.
Garcia’s brother, friends and neighbors went out to search for their father. As of 4 p.m., he still has not been found, she said, and urged people to be careful.
“Just safe and alive, that’s how I hope he returns,” Garcia said. “This flooding is no joke. Nobody knows what can happen.”
The Bellingham Herald has reached out to Everson police for more information.
