On June 18, the Ames Police Department received a report of a missing person— 29-year-old Philip Frystak from New Jersey — on the South Skunk River. A group of eight people had set out from Soper’s Mill north of Ames on the river with the intention to get out of the water at Carr Park in Ames.

Frystak’s friends first noticed he was gone after the group freed itself after getting caught in a fallen tree.

This incident occurred less than two days after a major storm swept through the state of Iowa that produced high winds and increased water levels in the area’s bodies of water.

According to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ website, fallen trees in the water act like a “kitchen sink strainer,” letting the water through and catching anything else.

After a hard rain or flooding in northern parts of the state, the rivers around Ames get deeper, faster and murkier as the water moves downstream. This causes the safety level of the area near rivers to drop and the rivers to become dangerous for tubers, canoers and kayakers to travel.

“Obviously the river’s certainly way up, probably beyond what it would be normally,” said Sgt. Christine Crippen with the Ames Police Department. “But with the heavy rain and the heavy rain up north and where the river begins at the basin, that will add to the water coming downstream.”

Because of the change in water conditions, search and rescue times lengthen. Part of the challenge to rescue efforts is the extra debris in the water that people may not be able to see, especially if they are traveling faster than normal downstream.

The Story County dive team had been searching from a boat by using sonar. The Central Iowa Dive Team had not put anyone in the water when they arrived but were on the boat with the Story County team.

“They were still assessing whether or not it was going to be safe for them to get into the water with the amount of branches coming down,” Crippen said. “I think they were a little concerned about divers getting hit by trees.”