Missing rafters weren’t really missing after all

Kootenai and Spokane County sheriff’s deputies spent nearly four hours Wednesday searching for two missing rafters who weren’t really lost.

Kootenai County Sheriff Rocky Watson said a county jet boat and two personal watercraft began searching the Spokane River about 1:30 p.m. between Corbin Park in Post Falls and Stateline after the couple was reported missing.

Spokane County Sheriff’s deputies searched the river between Stateline and Liberty Lake and a helicopter was preparing to fly above and scan the river because the water is currently shallow and clear.

A co-worker had called the sheriff’s department after the woman didn’t show up for work Wednesday and her boyfriend’s pickup was found at Corbin Park. There was a note in the window that read, “Rafting. Be back soon,” Watson said.

The search was halted about 5 p.m. after the couple called from a Liberty Lake home to tell the sheriff’s department they were safe. That’s the same time local television channels began reporting the couple were missing and feared to be in the river.

The couple told deputies that their raft had deflated and that they spent all night walking the river.

Watson had no comment about why the couple hadn’t been able to locate help earlier, especially since many homes and businesses line the river between Corbin Park and Spokane Valley.

Watson said the couple appeared to have used a blow-up children’s swimming pool as a raft. Deputies found the box for the recently purchased pool in the back of the pickup. He added that a witness saw a couple floating down the river in the make-shift raft while a jogger reported seeing the deflated raft on the shore just before Liberty Lake on Wednesday morning.

Watson said the search probably cost the county about $700 just in wages, but that the money isn’t the issue.

“When we put that many resources into it other things aren’t getting done,” Watson said. “When this happens, the rest of the world stops.”