Last update: 3 p.m.
CHESTER, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — The search for 6-year-old Li’najah Brooker has transitioned from a rescue operation to a recovery effort. The girl went missing Saturday evening after she slipped and fell into Chester Creek, swollen with flood water from Saturday's heavy rain.
That was the announcement Sunday afternoon from Delaware County officials, who say their best hope now is to find the missing girl's body so her family may have some closure.
Li’najah's aunt, Tyeesha Reynolds, told KYW news gathering partner NBC10 that the missing girl was playing with two other girls in a park near the creek. Her niece and another girl slipped on mud and fell into the fast-moving water. The other girl was able to regain her footing and climb out, but Li’najah was swept away.
Reynolds said Saturday night she was hoping responders would find her niece alive — "if not alive — just find her. The not-knowing is what’s killing us.”
The family says the park where Li’najah went missing has insufficient fencing along the creek.
“The condition of the fence — I’m gonna have to put my eyes on it, itself, but there might be some areas of that fence that’s compromised, and that’s something we can’t accept,” said Chester Mayor Stefan Roots.
Local rescue teams were called to the area, near 7th Street and the Avenue of the States, a little after 7 p.m. Saturday. While they stopped when conditions got too dark, the U.S. Coast Guard carried on through the night with a rescue boat and helicopter.
Those Delaware County emergency crews resumed their search on Sunday morning. They and the Coast Guard say they will work until nightfall and then wrap up the search.
Chester Fire Commissioner John-Paul Shirley said Sunday that conditions were far better than they were on the heels of Saturday’s storm.
“Obviously, we have sunlight. The flow of the creek — probably about 5 foot less in depth, and the current is a lot less. A lot less debris,” Shirley said. “But one of the biggest challenges is the cold.”
Shirley said small boats patrolled the creek and embankments the area of from West 7th and Sproul streets in Chester to the mouth of the Delaware River. From there, larger boats searched the Pennsylvania and New Jersey sides of the river, downstream to the Commodore Barry Bridge in the Delaware.
Shirley says this search marked the first deployment of the department’s new underwater drone.
“It allows us to basically see underwater without us having to put divers in the water,” said the fire commissioner. “Anytime you put divers underwater, it’s a dangerous situation.”
On Monday, crews patrolled the creek using a towed side-scan sonar device, which provides images of parts of the bank that are underwater and the creek bed. They say the scans and images detected nothing. They will continue an additional search on Tuesday.
Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled Li’najah's name. The current story reflects that change.