VENICE, Fla. — The search for four missing boaters in Venice who left for a trip and didn’t come back has been suspended, but families believe their loved ones are still out there and are pleading for help.
It’s the heartache no family wants to experience.
"We know that they’re alive. We just gotta keep looking for them,” said Danna Corona, the stepdaughter of Angel Hernandez Munoz. “We can’t give up.”
Yet it’s the reality for four families waiting on news of their loved ones.
ABC Action News heard from three of the families of the missing boaters out of Venice Tuesday afternoon.
“To us, that’s our family, that’s our father, that’s our world,” said Ruben Mora Jr., son of Ruben Mora Sr. “It means a lot more to us, and we’re running out of time.”
The US Coast Guard said it suspended the search for the four men missing off the coast of Venice Monday around 8:00pm pending new information.
The men who left from the Marina Park boat ramp Saturday morning and didn’t come back that night as planned are Angel Hernandez Munoz, Ruben Mora Sr., Julio Cesar Cordero Briones, and Alfonso Vargas Parra.
Their boat is a 1995 23-foot white SportCraft.
“From what I understand when they left on Saturday, the seas were not too rough, although we did have some heavy fog come in that afternoon, and so that could always be a factor, and then as going into overnight and into Sunday, the winds picked up, the seas picked up, and of course, it’s been raining most of that time,” said Capt. Andy Leisenring with the Venice Police Department during a press conference Monday afternoon.
The Coast Guard said crews searched for about 60 hours covering about 10,345 square nautical miles, which is roughly the size of Massachusetts.
Family members on Tuesday shared their frustrations that the search had been suspended, thinking it wasn’t enough time.
“48 hours is not enough for four people. That’s four lives,” said Mora Jr.
“We feel like the search should be expanded more south and out further,” said Juan Raul Mora, son of Ruben Mora Sr.
The families are still asking people with a boat to keep an eye out for their relatives and are holding out hope they come home safe.
“We just want to bring them home,” said Corona.
