Search for canoeist in Rockaway Twp. to resume Tuesday

ROCKAWAY TWP. - A search is scheduled to resume Tuesday for a man who has been missing since a canoe capsized in White Meadow Lake at 3 a.m. on Sunday.

The family of the missing man has been keeping vigil inside the White Meadow Lake Country Club that overlooks the private lake -- 10 feet deep at its deepest point -- but asked to be left alone on Monday.

Around 3 a.m. Sunday, police started receiving multiple 911 calls about a capsized canoe on the water. One of the two men in the vessel managed to swim to shore and was immediately assisted by rescue personnel and taken to St. Clares Hospital where he was treated and released.

Rescue workers responded immediately and spent much of the day Sunday looking for the missing man. Police Chief Martin McParland said both men are young adults from the White Meadow Lake community. He said the canoe was recovered.

Township police, members of the Morris County Prosecutor's Office and the Morris County Sheriff's Office were back at the shoreline by 9 a.m. Monday and walked part of it, with one officer checking the lake's dam.

State Police arrived around noon Monday and resumed searching the water. A State Police helicopter assisted in the recovery effort for about an hour, circling the lake overhead while divers in a Zodiac boat and troopers in a flat-bottomed boat equipped with sonar concentrated search efforts largely in an area that one resident identified as the Beach 3 area.

Divers from the State Police Technical Emergency and Mission Specialists unit spent nearly three hours Monday afternoon plunging into frigid White Meadow Lake before the boats and divers came ashore around 4:15 p.m.

Authorities have not identified the missing man. Several people stopped during the day to observe the search efforts but said they didn't know who the missing man was.

Investigators from multiple agencies began leaving the White Meadow Lake Country Club at 4:30 p.m. but a spokesperson for the Prosecutor's Office said the search will resume on Tuesday.

Prosecutor's Office Chief of Investigations John Speirs was at the lake a few hours Monday but said he couldn't comment. 

Authorities have not said why the men were on the lake at 3 am.

Staff Writer Peggy Wright: pwright@GannettNJ.com; 973-267-1142.