Chelsea King Searchers 'Move Heaven and Earth' to Find Girl

Feb. 27, 2010— -- Police and scores of volunteers searched through chilly, rainy weather today for a 17-year-old San Diego straight-A student who disappeared Thursday after going out for a run.

Chelsea King, 17, of Poway, Calif., in San Diego County, disappeared after parking her BMW sedan outside Rancho Bernardo Community Center on Thursday afternoon, and when she was late coming home her parents called police, San Diego County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Jan Caldwell said.

The search for King began Thursday night and continued throughout Friday, Caldwell said.

Sheriff's deputies were joined by the FBI, the San Diego Police Department, the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department and the Del Mar Lifeguard Service. Caldwell said 90 law enforcement personnel were deployed in 15 search and rescue teams.

Helicopters, volunteers and officers on horseback, bloodhounds and officers on ATVs scoured an area roughly four miles square along the shores of Lake Hodges today, Caldwell said.

"We're literally moving heaven and earth to find this little girl," Caldwell said.

This afternoon divers also searched the lake, while law officers and volunteers combed the streams and rivers feeding into the basin, Sheriff Bill Gore told ABC San Diego affiliate KGTV.

"It's been a truly great effort by everybody, all with the same goal of trying to return Chelsea to her family," Gore said. "It's obviously the unknown that's so stressful and so traumatic in something like this."

The searches will continue throughout the night and Sunday, the sheriff said.

"We wouldn't be here if there wasn't a chance of finding her," Gore said. "The more we search, the more we can eliminate."

The area where the teen disappeared, on the south shore of Lake Hodges, is rocky, uneven terrain, criss-crossed by trails through rough brush.