When New Year’s Eve began Monday, a local family and the community as a whole, had no indication how their world would turn upside down.

But here, three days later and hundreds of volunteer hours later, Monroe County reeled from the tragedy which occurred on Lyons Road.

At 6:57 p.m. on Monday, December 31, 20-year-old Leah Carter made a call to 911, then to her mother, to tell them her car had been swept from the low bridge into the East Fork Creek.

Immediately, emergency personnel dispatched to the area and workers spread along the creek banks looking for the white Saturn driven by Carter, according to Chief Deputy Lucas Geralds, who is investigating the incident.

Throughout the night, multiple law enforcement agencies and emergency personnel searched the creek and nearby areas on foot, all terrain vehicles, rescue boats and even helicopters.

The flooding, which was estimated 15-18 feet above normal flow, began to subdue during the night. Although the decision was made for the search team to go home and rest for a few hours, many members decided they would work through the night, Geralds added.

Just before daybreak with the water levels receding, they were able to find what they believed to be Carter’s car around 500 yards below the bridge that her car had flowed over.

The creek bottom on the farm of Scott Davis off Grinestaff Road filled with emergency personnel as large equipment was brought in and slowly the car was removed from the water.

Carter’s body was not found in the vehicle.

The group moved back to the headquarters at Gamaliel Fire Hall and joined with several other volunteers to form teams which scoured the search area throughout the day.

At one time, over 100 volunteers were on scene at the same time with approximately 300 working during the day, according to Gamaliel Fire Chief Bo Wesley Simpson, who oversaw search efforts.

However, as night fell on the second night, searchers had still not located Carter.

As K-9 units had arrived earlier in the day, they requested that all searchers clear the area to allow the dogs to work more effectively.

At press time, search efforts had resumed throughout the area.

(Footnote: According to reports, on Saturday morning, January 5, five days after the incident, volunteer searchers discovered the victim’s body on a creek bank of the East Fork about five miles from where the vehicle had first been swept away by flood waters.)