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Authorities searching for missing Plainfield woman

Lead Summary

 Officials continued their search Wednesday after a 76-year-old Plainfield woman was reported missing Tuesday at 5:11 p.m. when her husband returned home and found her missing. Cloris Mehmen is described as 5-foot tall, weighing 130 pounds and with white hair and green eyes.She was last seen wearing blue jeans and a men’s short sleeved t-shirt. “(Mehmen’s husband) left the house about 7:30 in the morning and she left who knows when,” Bremer County Sheriff Dan Pickett said. According to Pickett, a search began immediately after taking the report. “Due to the extreme heat and not knowing how long she’d been gone we took the report and we activated a search and started looking down gravels, checked the house and the area residences and she still has not been located.”Mehmen suffers from Alzheimer’s and dementia and has left home unannounced in the past.“She has done this before but nothing this (long),” Pickett said. “She would wander into Plainfield, that’s when we were involved. We’ve been involved three times in the last few months...she was always located in a short period of time.” A few reports have been made claiming sightings of a woman matching Mehmen’s description. “We had received a report...someone thought they saw a lady matching her description in Waterloo on Fifth Street,” Pickett said. “I doubt she made it on foot that far.”Another report potentially answered how Mehmen may have traveled as far as Waterloo.“We received a report that a person possibly saw her on County 63,” Pickett said. The report mentioned the possibility of Mehmen entering an older, white vehicle and heading eastbound.“We’ll keep searching until we get to that point where we’ve checked everything possible in our area,” Pickett said. “Hopefully she is that person in Waterloo, that would be our best case scenario.”Search and rescue crews and volunteers have come from surrounding areas to help look for Mehmen. “There are many fire departments from some distance away, EMS personnel, law enforcement, there's search and rescue people — I would say 100 plus (people) are searching,” Pickett said. Plainfield Fire Department, Bremer County Emergency Management and Bremer County Sheriff's Office personnel began the search on Tuesday evening, searching a seven-mile radius.  They searched along the roads, ditches, fields and gravel roads and there is still no clue or hint of where she walked off to. They suspended the search when strong thunderstorms passed through the area Tuesday evening.Wednesday morning, officals made a call out to all area fire, police and EMT departments to help with the search.  "There are too many departments to name," said Pickett.  Nashua, New Hampton, Denver, Oran and several more departments came prepared with ATVs and trucks ready to assist with the search of Mehmem.According to Pickett, a command center has been established at the Plainfield City Hall to help direct and create the most effective search. “(The command center) will be there for awhile,” he said. “We’ll just keep going until we’ve used our resources here anyway.”Pickett said anyone who has any information on Mehmen please call 319-352-5400, extention 3.— This story contains information from the Nashua Reporter’s Jennifer Lantz 

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