GALVESTON, Texas -- Search teams finished a second sweep of Bolivar Peninsula on Thursday and did not find any bodies, the Galveston County judge said. However, as the search of the devastated peninsula transitions from rescue to recovery, Judge Jim Yarbrough cautioned that those missing from Bolivar might never be seen again.

“There's no question we are going to have some missing people (that) we are never going to find,” Yarbrough said Thursday night.

The judge said search teams have scoured about 75 percent of the peninsula, searching through debris for residents who may have never made it off Bolivar before Hurricane Ike laid waste to the area. He estimated too, that about 30 to 40 residents remain on Bolivar despite an order to vacate.

Thus far, no bodies have been found, but the county judge knows that is not likely going to be the case as the search expands.

“We are going to find bodies over there. No doubt,” Yarbrough said in a muted tone.

The judge also put to rest rumors that the county had shut off the peninsula to open a temporary morgue and cover up mass finds of bodies. He said that in five days of searching no bodies had been found and that no morgue operation was present on the peninsula or at Galveston's UTMB, as had been rumored.

Officially, seven people in the county died as a result of Hurricane Ike. None of the dead is from the peninsula.

Yarbrough said a hotline set up by the county to track missing residents has created a list of 50 people considered missing. But he cautioned that some of those on the list have been found safe at shelters in other parts of the state.

He did not know how many people reported missing had actually been found. The county has teamed with the Laura Recovery Center to create flyers of the missing as well.

AP

This Bolivar home was badly damaged by Hurricane Ike.

The searches on Bolivar have been conducted by members of Texas Task Force 1, specialized cadaver dog search teams as well as members of the local volunteer fire departments on the Peninsula that know the lay of the land better than anyone.

In the coming days, the search will expand to include the area known as Goat Island. The island is a small strip of land across the Intracoastal Waterway from the peninsula.

Yarbrough said there is a large debris field on that island and is the next logical place to search, but only after a game plan to do so safely can be worked out.

“That is a very dangerous place with all that debris, plus you have lots of snakes and other obstacles,” the judge said.