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Search Continues For Missing Woman At Beaver Lake

BENTON COUNTY (KFSM) – Rescuers continued their search for a missing woman at Beaver Lake on Monday (March 30). Stacey Hernandez, 21, of Rogers went missi...

BENTON COUNTY (KFSM) - Rescuers continued their search for a missing woman at Beaver Lake on Monday (March 30).

Stacey Hernandez, 21, of Rogers went missing on Tuesday (March 24) while at the lake with family members.

Parts of Beaver Lake are more than 130 feet deep, so authorities are using sonar equipment to locate the body.

"We've taken part of the lake and we've gridded it off into five grids," said Keshia Guyll, Benton County Sheriff's Office. "Currently we're through almost four of those grids. We're searching them with sonar, so hopefully we can get to that fifth grid and find something."

Guyll said the deep waters and not exactly knowing where the drowning happened has made the search and recovery more difficult.

"In most situations especially in situations like this there's usually a witness that can say 'this is where we last saw him or her' and in this situation we didn't have that," she said.

Alan Bland, a park ranger with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said Beaver Lake presents several obstacles for rescuers.

"The number one is trees and stumps," he said. "There's many rock ledges and bluffs down there under the water. There's still some old structures that are dilapidated. You never know what you're going to hit or get into."

Authorities said this is the 115th drowning at Beaver Lake since 1966. Only four of those bodies have never been found.

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