VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) - Virginia Marine Police and a group of volunteers are continuing to search for the driver whose truck plunged over the side of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.
The Virginian-Pilot reported Tuesday that the Virginia Marine Police decided to keep searching with two boats daily plus a plane.
The initial, multi-agency search for Erik Mezick was called off last week by the Coast Guard. Mezick went over the side of the bridge-tunnel in a box truck on Dec. 29. He lived near Salisbury, Maryland
Mezick’s family has also taken up its own search with the help of a band of volunteers. They’ve been scouring shorelines, under the bridge-tunnel and around Fisherman’s Island.
Mezick, 47, drove a truck for Cloverland Greenspring Dairy. CBBT police are still trying to determine what happened.
The bridge connects Virginia’s Eastern Shore to Virginia Beach. Matthew Rogers, a marine police colonel, said the cold weather makes the search more challenging.
“Once a body goes under in cold water, it can stay down for weeks, even months,” Rogers said. He said that storms and currents can move a body “all over the Chesapeake Bay, even force them to the mouth and out to the ocean.”
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