Crime & Safety
Search Continues For Jayda Jenkins in Niles Canyon
BREAKING: The Tracy woman vanished Saturday when her car crashed into Alameda Creek.
FREMONT, CA — The search continued this morning for a missing Tracy woman whose car went into Alameda Creek east of Fremont on Saturday morning.
Investigators say 18-year-old Jayda Jenkins' car careened off Niles Canyon Road after striking another car at about 10:45 a.m. Saturday. The car came to rest upside down in the creek and was totally submerged by the time California Highway Patrol officers arrived on scene, according to the CHP.
The search for Jenkins was hampered early on by the quickly moving waters of Alameda Creek, which was running extremely high due to several recent storms.
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Recovery crews found the car on Monday morning but the dangerous water conditions prevented any effort to pull it from the water until Tuesday.
When the car was searched and Jenkins was not inside, the effort to recover her body shifted to areas around the crash site and downstream from where the car went into the water. "It looks like she might have tried to get out (of the car), which shows she was a fighter trying to save her life," Alameda County sheriff's
spokesman Sgt. Ray Kelly said.
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Over the past 24 hours or so, search crews were able to find some of her personal belongings, including some clothing that had been pushed downstream, Kelly said. "I know her family is out there searching today and we have personnel searching, as well," Kelly said.
Additionally, deputies are reviewing video collected from drone flights and cameras posted along the creek.
"We're also going to continue to fly the creek" with drones, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, Kelly said.
The intensive search has drawn in personnel from the sheriff's office, Fremont police and fire departments, the CHP and the East Bay Regional Park District, among other agencies.
Two regional water agencies and the California Department of Water Resources even assisted the recovery by slowing the flow of water from two upstream reservoirs, Lake Del Valle near Livermore and Calaveras Reservoir, which is southeast of Fremont, Kelly said.
Crews had closed Niles Canyon Road from Fremont to Sunol for the past two days in order to better facilitate the search and recovery efforts, but the road is open today to traffic in both directions.
— Bay City News; Image via Alameda County Sheriff's Office
