PORT ANGELES — Searchers combed streets and neighborhoods for about 12 hours Wednesday night before a missing 14-year-old girl was found, tired but safe.
Tinka Hanan was picked up in the Old Mill Road area on the southern edge of Port Angeles just after 8 a.m. Thursday by a passing Stevens Middle School teacher who recognized her, the girl’s father, Steve, said.
She had left the family’s home on Peele Road, off Black Diamond Road south of the city, around 6 p.m., became lost and disoriented, and spent the night outdoors, dressed in running shorts and a sweatshirt.
Tinka “basically spent the night huddled up with her sweatshirt pulled down over her legs and her hood over her head,” Steve Hanan said Thursday afternoon.
The girl, who is developmentally challenged, was jogging up and down Peele Road, a short street, when she left headed toward downtown Port Angeles, her father said.
He noticed within a few minutes that she was gone and drove off in his van to try and catch her on Black Diamond Road but did not find her.
Search and rescue
Clallam County Search and Rescue, sheriff’s deputies and Port Angeles police launched a search for Tinka, combing the Black Diamond area and surrounding areas, working north and south of the home and into nearby woods, said Sheriff’s Capt. Ron Cameron.
They also produced fliers with Tinka’s photo and description, distributing them to local police departments and law enforcement agencies nationwide through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.