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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The search for a man who went missing during a Sunday kayaking trip ended on Thursday, when his body was discovered on the Clear Lake shoreline.
The body of 28-year-old Dylan Rockne Flanagan of San Francisco was found Thursday morning, said Lt. Corey Paulich of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
Paulich said a Cal Fire crew traveling through the area found Flanagan’s body at 10:40 a.m. on the shoreline in the area of Olson Road in Clearlake Oaks.
Flanagan’s death is the fifth on Clear Lake this year, the sheriff’s office reported. Clearlake Oaks has been the site of the majority of those deaths; in early June, there were three deaths in just one weekend, all offshore of Clearlake Oaks.
Flanagan, who had been staying in a vacation rental in the area of Olson Road and East Highway 20 to celebrate his 28th birthday and a job promotion, had gone kayaking Sunday afternoon but didn’t return, as Lake County News has reported.
The conditions at the time were reported to be windy, with high waves on Clear Lake. Flanagan was reportedly not wearing a life jacket.
What followed was a four-day-long search effort led by the Lake County Sheriff’s Marine Patrol, with the assistance of Flanagan’s family, friends and co-workers.
During the course of those search efforts, items believed to have been his — the kayak, a paddle, a flip-flop, a water bottle and a hydration backpack — were located throughout the search area, which had included Widgeon Bay to Rattlesnake Island and Clark’s Island.
The Marine Patrol had been running a grid pattern search and also had used side scan sonar.
Paulich said Flanagan’s autopsy is scheduled for next week.
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Four days after he was last seen kayaking on Clear Lake, a missing man remains the focus of an intense search around the Clearlake Oaks area, with items that are believed to have belonged to him being found near where he was last seen.
A kayak, its paddle, a shoe and a life jacket are all clues that have been discovered by the Lake County Sheriff’s Marine Patrol, along with family and friends of 28-year-old Dylan Rockne Flanagan, who have been looking for him since he failed to return from a kayaking trip on Sunday evening.
Flanagan, a Southern California native who has been working in the San Francisco area, had been staying at a vacation rental near East State Highway 20 and Olson Road in Clearlake Oaks, said Lt. Rich Ward of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
Ward said Flanagan was vacationing in Lake County to celebrate his 28th birthday and a promotion at his job.
For the past two years, Flanagan had been working at the San Francisco-based AppsFlyer, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Late Sunday afternoon, Flanagan headed out on Clear Lake, planning to paddle to Rattlesnake Island in what Ward described as a small but standard 8- to 9-foot kayak.
Flanagan’s girlfriend told the sheriff’s office that Flanagan was last seen at approximately 4:45 p.m. Sunday while out in the kayak. Ward said the information they’ve received so far is that he was not wearing a life jacket.
Ward said Flanagan’s girlfriend had called him on his cellphone shortly after 5 p.m. Sunday, at which point he said he was on the kayak and was OK. But her attempts to contact him afterward resulted in the calls going to voicemail.
Winds were high that day, and when the sheriff’s Marine Patrol began searching that night, they ran into similarly rough conditions, Ward said.
On Sunday night, Marine Patrol searched the immediate area of where Flanagan was last seen, and did a visual search of the shoreline along Highway 20 and the Rattlesnake Island area, Ward said.
But Ward said the rough weather and high winds led to Marine Patrol stopping their search efforts until Monday morning after a Marine Patrol boat began taking in water after 11 p.m.
Just after 9:30 a.m. Monday, Marine Patrol units located a dark green kayak that they believed to be the one Flanagan had used in the area of Widgeon Bay. Ward said there was no evidence of the boat being damaged.
Flanagan’s friends, family and co-workers have been important partners in the search. Ward said they’ve been scouring the area, and his employer hired a private helicopter to help in the search effort.
Ward said seven or eight members of that group went over to Rattlesnake Island and searched it for Flanagan, but didn’t find him.
They did, however, find a kayak paddle they believe he used on the island’s north end on Tuesday, Ward said.
Other clues Ward said they’ve found include a flip-flop, a water bottle and a hydration backpack.
Although initial statements indicated Flanagan wasn’t wearing a life jacket, Ward said a life jacket was found at the entrance of the Keys. He added that such equipment flies out of boats every day on the lake, so its discovery may not be significant in the search for Flanagan.
Because they don’t know where Flanagan might have gone into the water, Ward said the Marine Patrol is running a grid search with three boats from Widgeon Bay to Clark’s Island. Side scan sonar also has been used across two-thirds of that area but so far it hasn’t located him.
Ward said it’s like looking for a needle in a stack of needles.
At the same time, Ward said searchers have continued to encounter challenging conditions, from Clear Lake’s low water levels — the lowest in four decades — to shifting winds.
Based on his knowledge of the lake, Ward surmised that Flanagan’s kayak began taking on water in the rough conditions and he went into the lake between Widgeon Bay and Rattlesnake Island.
That night there were whitecaps due to the winds which could have capsized the boat. At the same time, Ward said Flanagan could have been disoriented as to his location.
“You could be an Olympic swimmer and not make it to shore if you knew where shore was,” said Ward, adding that many people don’t realize the magnitude of the waves on Clear Lake.
The concern now is that the search has moved from rescue to recovery.
Ward said he spoke with Flanagan’s father, who is remaining hopeful, but also realizing that the search is shifting to a recovery operation.
Nonetheless, Ward said, the family indicated its members intend to continue searching for Flanagan for the next few days and will remain in Lake County through the week.
Ward said the sheriff’s office is maintaining its full staff of marine units to continue searching as long as the weather permits.
Flanagan, who is 6 feet, 1 inch tall, was last seen wearing a navy-colored Hawaiian shirt, straw hat and pink shorts.
The sheriff’s office asks that anyone with information about Flanagan contact the Central Dispatch nonemergency line at 707-263-2690.
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Tammy Sue Grogan-Robinson, 57, appeared in Lake County Superior Court before Judge J. David Markham via Zoom from the Lake County Jail on Wednesday morning.
Grogan-Robinson is charged with killing 56-year-old Charles Vernon McClelland of Rohnert Park.
Deputies found the body of McClelland, Grogan-Robinson’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, in the Clearlake Oaks residence where she was living on the morning of July 7.
The discovery of McClelland’s body followed Grogan-Robinson going to the hospital to claim she had been sexually assaulted.
An autopsy would later determine that McClelland had been shot multiple times. The District Attorney’s Office said in its charging document that Grogan-Robinson used a handgun in the killing.
Investigators concluded the shooting was unjustified and premeditated, pointing to Grogan-Robinson sending texts to a friend the night before the killing, stating her intention to shoot McClelland.
She was arrested on Aug. 18 in Missouri, where she has family. Authorities extradited her back to Lake County, where she was booked into the jail on Sept. 11.
Concerns about public safety and Grogan-Robinson being a flight risk led Judge Markham to order she be held without bail at a Sept. 28 hearing.
During the brief Wednesday court appearance, attorney Mitch Hauptman — acting on Grogan-Robinson’s behalf — entered not guilty pleas to murder and assault with a firearm, and denied each of the special allegations, which include intentionally discharging a firearm causing death, personal use of a firearm and inflicting great bodily injury.
At Hauptman’s urging, Grogan-Robinson agreed to a time waiver that would not require her preliminary hearing to be held within 30 days of the plea entry.
Instead, the preliminary hearing has been set for 8:15 a.m. Nov. 17, in a department that will be assigned at a Nov. 12 hearing.
Also on Nov. 17, Hauptman is again asking that Grogan-Robinson’s bail be reviewed.
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PG&E scales back size of Thursday power shut-off; less than 100 Lake County customers to be included
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Pacific Gas and Electric said Wednesday night that it has scaled back the size of its planned public safety power shut-off scheduled for early Thursday morning.
The company — which had conducted a public safety power shut-off, or PSPS, on Monday and Tuesday due to high winds — said another shut-off also was being triggered by weather and dry conditions.
Originally, the second shut-off this week, set to start shortly after 12 a.m. Thursday, was to include 29,000 customers in 12 counties.
But by Wednesday night, PG&E said it had scaled back the planned PSPS to about 6,000 customers in 11 counties in response to the incoming weather system, which is weaker than the one earlier this week that prompted the first of the two PSPS events.
Nearly 1,800 Lake County customers originally had been included in the original notifications. PG&E said Wednesday night the number of Lake County customers expected to be impacted had been reduced to 94, of which three are in the Medical Baseline program.
The Lake County customers included in the Thursday PSPS are in the Cobb and Middletown areas, and east of Lower Lake.
In addition to Lake, these are the counties to be impacted in the Thursday PSPS:
Butte: 768 customers, 69 Medical Baseline customers.
Colusa: 553 customers, 38 Medical Baseline customers.
Glenn: 376 customers, 22 Medical Baseline customers.
Kern: 664 customers, 34 Medical Baseline customers.
Napa: 468 customers, 22 Medical Baseline customers.
Shasta: 721 customers, 53 Medical Baseline customers.
Solano: 1,026 customers, 72 Medical Baseline customers.
Sonoma: 127 customers, 3 Medical Baseline customers.
Tehama: 1,227 customers, 126 Medical Baseline.
Yolo: 250 customers, 5 Medical Baseline customers.
Due to the small number of Lake County customers, PG&E will not open a community resource center locally.
Information about the PSPS can be found here.
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