WACO, Texas -- The search for Brittany Stevenson is set to resume Friday morning. The car the 24-year-old was in crashed into Lake Waco before midnight Wednesday, and she hasn't been seen since.
Even through the cold and rain, a large group of volunteers led the search all day Thursday. A long line of cars covered both sides of McLaughlin Road. They're not cop cars, but they, too, responded to the call."Everybody's doing what they can do," said Dean England, of Crawford. "Just help each other out.
"I mean, if my daughter was out here, or if I was out here," he said, "I'd hope that somebody would come out and be trying to help in whatever way."
England brought his two kids and his two horses, and the trio searched the area Thursday afternoon.
On horseback and four-wheelers, the group of dozens of volunteers searched around Lake Waco for any signs of Stevenson.
The car she was in drove through a barrier on McLaughlin Road and into the water New Year's Eve.
The other person in the car escaped. She told investigators she never saw Stevenson do the same. Search crews pulled the car from the lake at around 8 a.m. Thursday. That's when the real search started.
Now animal and human team up to comb the terrain, to look for any sign she made it out of the water.
"It's wet, there's a lot of thorn bushes, there's a lot of trees, zig-zagging in and out," said Mitch Bynum, a pastor at Top Hand Cowboy Church in Valley Mills.
"It's a good thing the horses are here," he added, "because there's a lot of pipe that we have to go over, a lot of stumps that we can go over, where otherwise four-wheelers can't get into."
The search crews packed up as the sun set, and Waco police set up barricades.
They planned to camp there overnight, before getting back in the saddle alongside the impromptu search party Friday morning.
"As long as we're an asset and as long as we stay warm and are able to help and not hinder," England said, "then we'll stay."
Waco Fire, the Texas Game Wardens, the Lake Waco Rangers and the Morgan's Point Dive Team helped search the lake.
Waco police ask everyone to keep an eye out for Stevenson. She's 5'6'' tall, with brown hair and hazel eyes.
She was wearing a white sweater, dark skinny jeans, brown knee-high boots, and a cheetah print scarf.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Waco PD at 254-750-7500.
