BENBROOK, Texas — It's been four days since anyone saw Jose Reyes, and his family is growing frustrated with the search efforts.
Reyes, an 18-year-old recent Everman High School graduate, was last seen Sunday evening on Benbrook Lake. He was kayaking with friends when he disappeared in the water. His brother, Juan, told WFAA it was Jose's first time kayaking, and the winds were high. The kayak has since been found, but Jose has not.
"We need help. We really need help," Juan Reyes said Thursday.
Reyes said his family feels there aren't enough resources being devoted to the search. Texas Game Wardens, the Benbrook Fire Department and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are involved in the search, but Reyes said they often see just one boat searching.
"We haven’t been really getting any feedback from them or really any help from them," he said. "It's been just mainly volunteers going out searching, giving us feedback."
"We’ve got people we don’t even know coming from three hours away, coming out to help," Reyes continued. "[We're] getting 100 calls a day, just people asking, 'Where can we start, where can we look?'"
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Game Warden Captain Cliff Swofford, who spoke with media at the scene Thursday, said their hearts go out to the Reyes family and said Texas Parks and Wildlife is committed to finding Jose Reyes.
"This is what we do. We will not quit," Swofford said. "We’re not going to go anywhere until closure is had for the family."
Swofford said they are doing all they can to find Jose. It's a tough lake to search, he said; there are so many trees under the water that they can't use the preferred specialized sonar they'd like to. Instead, they're using a side-scan sonar, which can also be problematic to use if too many boats are nearby.
He said he understands the family's frustration, but reiterated they're taking the search very seriously. He explained why it may appear they don't have many people searching.
"The resources we’re using are the same amount of resources, really, we always have," he said. "What we see in the past-- it looks like a lot more, because when this typically happens, it's more on a holiday weekend. There’s a lot of different agencies out, so there’s a lot of people already there."
"People may look and there might not be a boat right then," Swofford continued. "But we’re coming back, and we’re going to continue to come back, and we’re going to continue to use the resources and equipment we have available that we can use effectively, just like we always do."
Swofford made the same statements in an email sent to media on Thursday night:
"The search may look different as time goes on, but we're not going anywhere. The search is conducted daily and follows long-standing best practices that have been proven effective through hundreds of search efforts over many years. The search will continue until the individual has been recovered.”
Swofford said there's now a liaison who'll work with both the family and the game wardens to ease communication. Divers haven't yet been used, he said, because "we want to make sure we know what we're looking at before we send the divers, and we have not found that identifiable mark yet."
Swofford also added anyone who wants to help in the search is welcome to.
"We need all the help we can get," Juan Reyes said. "Prayers to find my brother. That’s all I ask."